And who hasn't imagined what it might be like if someone were to have this done, be reanimated off in the distant future, and make the necessary adjustments to a whole new life in a whole new world. What might that be like? How much of who you once were would be in sync with all of the changes that have unfolded over years. And, in this case, the year is 2084.

One of those films that is bursting at the seams with all manner of provocative conjecture. What if this, what if that. A whole new world in which to speculate about right and wrong, good and bad.

Love and lust.

What would you think, feel, do? After all, do you really imagine it will be the same reaction as Marc's?

Then it all revolves around whether the plot and the characters either enhance the experience for you or encumber it with the sort of miscues that prompt you to imagine how much better it could have been. And the general consensus among the critics is that it could have been better indeed. For example, by scaling back on all those [at times] god-awful flashbacks.

Still, the subject itself is no less fascinating.

As for the science on display here, how realistic is it? You tell me.

IMDb

Oona Chaplin, who plays the character of Naomi, is the granddaughter of legendary actor Charles Chaplin.

The urban legend suggesting Walt Disney was cryopreserved is false; he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Marc [voiceover]: Imagine, you were born... totally aware and conscious of everything around you. Conscious you were coming out of someone else's body, joint to it by a bloody cord. That you are completely covered in blood. Conscious of the dry air entering your lungs for the first time; the sharp sounds in your ears; the blinding light in your eyes. Conscious that your bones are unbearably soft and your life is so fragile, it could disappear at any moment. That's what being resurrected is like.

...

Victor: Good morning, Miss Mansfra. Welcome to Prodigy. Where humanity's greatest dream is coming true. Are you aware that our team of top international scientists has developed the world's most advanced regeneration program? We're the only ones capable of regenerating up to 65 percent of the human organism. Prodigy Health Corporation... The only company in the world that can bring you immortality. Because immortality is only a question of time.

...

Victor: That's a scanned map of Lazarus with an accuracy almost to the cell. We use it to study the primary difficulties and to make decisions before the big surgery. Like what proportion of the body can be reanimated and what proportion must be substituted by bionic parts and organs developed in our laboratory.

...

Marc [voiceover]: Why does time pass so slowly when we're children? Why does the future seem like a huge endless eternity? Why do we never feel anything that intensely again? Only the pain...

...

Doctor: Our worst-case prognosis has been confirmed. It's too late to operate. All that we can do right now is try to slow its spread with treatment. At this point, radiotherapy and co-adjuvant chemotherapy is still the most effective option. Marc: How long have I got? Doctor: Based on our experience with this type of tumor, you'll be able to live, more or less comfortably for about a year.

Cue the options.

Marc [vocieover]: You can't imagine all the things that need to be done to dismantle your life. And prepare everything for when you are gone...Telling the people you love. Deciding who not to tell. Managing all the concern you will awaken. Telling your mother. Explaining to her that she's going to outlive you. Writing your will. Selling your properties. Emptying the house of your personal belongings. Looking at them for the last time. When you get rid of everything you ever were...what's left?

...

Naomi [to Marc]: I want to be with you through this. I want to spend the rest of your life with you.

...

Marc: What do you guys think about cryonization? Friend: Like Walt Disney, right? Marc: Walt Disney didn't have himself cryonized, but yes. Friend: So what is it? Friend: Basically, after you die, your body gets put into a capsule with um, liquid nitrogen? Am I right? In hopes that someday, medicine might be able to cure whatever disease you have or just to live longer.

...

Marc: Let me show you something....this article is seven years old now. They extracted the heart matrix out of a dead rat and inject its stem cells into it. A few days later, the heart started beating. And this is just the beginning. I mean, since then, they've even managed to fabricate simple human organs. They've even transplanted some of them successfully. There's a revolution coming. At some point in the not-so-distant future, they'll be able to manufacture organs specifically created to suit each patient. I mean, imagine, I could just simply replace my pharynx with a new one.

...

Charles: Look man, the truth is, I still don't trust it. All the websites I've seen look like they belong to a cult or something. There's no guarantee. Did you know that in 1979, they found the bodies of nine people that have been cryonized? In a cemetery, here in California, thawed, 'cause the company was cutting costs.

...

Naomi [to Marc]: Why do you think that anybody from the future would want to bring you back to life? Or anybody else for that matter? The world is gonna be totally overpopulated. You'll be like a man from the 19th century. I mean, what's the point of that? Unless they wanna use you as guinea pigs for science.

Then this part:

Charles: Everywhere I look, they say the body needs to be cryonized as soon as possible after you're declared legally dead. Marc: So your cells don't deteriorate. Charles: But no matter what they did, it would take several hours. Even a day or more to complete the process. The damage will be huge. Not to mention the harm caused by the disease and the treatment before you die. Martc: Yeah. I'm not doing any more chemo. I already saw my father spend years of his life fighting his disease. Dying little by little. I won't go through that. And as far as the time between death and cryonization...well, I have a plan to make sure that they get to me quickly and start pumping blood right away. Charles: How... How will you do that? I mean you would have to know the exact circumstances of your death. Marc: Yeah. Um, I'm gonna make sure they're waiting close by and that I'm in good physical shape when the time comes. I gotta die before the disease gets a hold of me.

Bingo: Suicide. That's the bet. Abandon the present for what may or may not be a future.

Marc [voiceover]: Ladies and gentlemen of the future, it's time to introduce myself. I'll use the same words as Dr. West. My name is Marc Jarvis, And I am the first man ever to be resurrected. To summarize, this is what I am. 20 percent remains of vital organs and tissue recovered from my old body. Mainly the brain and the rest of the central nervous system. 65 percent cloned bones muscle, skin, nerve endings, and other organ remains. 10 percent bionic implants to reinforce the muscular, skeletal system and sensory organs. And 5 percent internal technology designed to regulate and monitor the correct functioning of the organism. On top of that, add a system of external connection. A detachable umbilical cord. A nearly constant means of connecting me to my new mechanical mother. Dr. West and his team have had to face innumerable problems since my reanimation. and their respective solutions have been insufferable. More surgery. Organ removal. Induced coma. External control of vital signs. The administering of drugs to prevent adverse reaction. More drugs to ease the effects of those drugs. And so on, and so on, and so on. All this resulting in a terribly fragile organism. Permanently on the edge of collapse. The Laboratory Man. Frankenstein's monster....But there is another way to look at it. I was going to die. I was going to disappear. Forever. And I'm alive again. I'm alive. I'm alive.

...

Dr. Gethers: Actually, Marc, there is something you've never seen before. Technology's biggest revolution since computers. We call it MW or Mind Writer. If you connect it to your head, it can extract images and sounds. With concentration and practice, you can record your thoughts. Nowadays, MW is used for everything. This is where the information is recorded. Then later, it is used to substantiate anything that has occurred, or to present reports and projects. Or to simply share experiences and connect with people. Or see what they're doing behind your back. It's also used to create art. You were an artist, weren't you? Marc: Yes. Doctor Gethers: Apart from anything else, it would help us to get to know you better. And not only us, very soon, many people will want to know first-hand, how you feel. We want you to have something ready when we present you to society to the media and to our investors. Marc: The media? Doctor Gethers: A lot of people have paid good money for your resurrection. It's important that the world meets you, Marc.

Of course: the ulterior motives of the reanimaters.

Marc: You got a boyfriend? Elizabeth: I think our notion of couples is not as defined as it was back in your time. Marc: What do you mean? Elizabeth: Well, let's just say that romantic love has come under a lot more scrutiny. You were truly slaves to it back then. We don't suppress much of our love anymore. Marc: So what do you do in your spare time?Elizabeth: Um, well, since I started working here, not very much, um I'm a big fan of Mind Writer, almost an addict. I watch series, I have dinner with my parents. I meet with my sex group. Marc: Sex group? Elizabeth: I'm lucky, it's very complete. And I've got good friends there. I like you. If you want, we can have sex some time. Well, later on, of course. When your body feels strong enough.

...

Marc [voiceover]: Life. What do we expect from it? Certainly not this fragility. This half speed existence. We definitely don't expect a medical history full of afflictions and minor defects. A propensity for thrombosis. Numbness in the extremities. Involuntary movements. Loss of equilibrium. Scaling of the skin. Irritation of conjunctive tissue. Respiratory insufficiency. Cardiac insufficiency. Incontinence. Impotence. You don't expect so many limitations so soon. You never expect this invincible fatigue which eventually becomes like a fog. Covering everything...And if deterioration, fatigue and despair do arrive, you at least expect to keep your memories. What if What if your memories were erased as well? What will become of me now that my memories are fading?

...

Dr. Serra: I don't mean to trivialize this, Marc, but nowadays, memory loss is not considered a serious problem. Mind Writer allows us to recover memory with a 100 percent accuracy. In fact, millions of people all over the world lead completely normal lives without actually remembering anything.

...

Dr. West: Don't you realize the importance of our achievement? It's a giant step in the history of medicine. You're that giant step, Marc. You'd better prepare yourself. You're gonna be the most famous person on the planet.

...

Marc [voiceover]: I don't know if any of you, maybe some of the oldest, have seen any films about Jesus Christ. I remember being struck once by Lazarus' attitude in the first moments after he was revived by the Messiah. He looked deeply confused. Like he knew he was morally corrupt. As if he hated Jesus for bringing him back to life.

...

Dr. West: A large part of the success of your reanimation was due to the fact that you interrupted your life while still in very good physical shape. That's why you were selected. [he motions towards a room filled with tanks]Dr. West: There they are. You spent a while here too, you know. Marc: What will happen to them? Dr. West: Well, it's hard to say. Apart from the medical risks involved in each individual case, the time and resources required for reanimation are still quite high. Consider that we'd have to create organs and specific technology for each one of them. Like we did with you. And an enormous team of humans would have to be mobilized. Marc: Then most of these people will never be reanimated? Dr. West: Reviving cryonized people are so expensive at the moment that someone would have to have a special interest in them. And be willing to pay for it.

No getting around that. No matter how far into the future.

Marc [voiceover]: What was it? Where did it come from? The need to constantly be seeking some unknown source of fulfillment. The hunger for experiences in life that always made me wanna be everywhere except where I actually was. Life seemed like it was always just around the corner. Or in some brief moment passed that only remained in memory. Never here. Never now. It was a promise always perceived intuitively.

...

Elizabeth: What about being straight with him? It might help him. You know, let's explain to him that his neurons aren't dying and his memories aren't being erased for no reason. That we do know the cause. Let's explain to him that he's boycotting himself. Dr. Serra: Elizabeth, even if Marc were able to understand, he wouldn't be prepared to take control. And the process might even accelerate if you attempted to throw in the towel and give up altogether. That's not the real issue here. Marc's decision is what matters. He isn't here by chance. He chose to stop living so he could have another life. Well, he certainly feels very guilty about Naomi. No wonder. He sacrificed a remarkable woman for an inadequate dream. Marc is an adult who made his own decisions and has to live with the consequences.

...

Elizabeth [to Marc]: The bosses gave me permission. We can have sex now. But softly. This pill is so you can maintain erection. And this is a desire stimulant. One for each of us. Everybody uses them. I always take them. They increase desire quickly and without side effects.

...

Marc [voiceover]: Before I died, I thought there was nothing after death. Now, I'm sure...Why do we yearn so desperately for life after death? What is it that we want? Perhaps reward for our grief. Or punishment for our sins. No. What we really expect to find is what we already know. What we once had...and lost. If there was something we would turn it into more of the same. The same chaos and the same beauty. The same reward for the same effort. The same tale by the same idiot.

...

Dr. West [to a gathering of potential donors]: Don't worry, we won't be asking you to take out your wallets. You'll gladly hand them to us. Because the future of medicine is in our hands. Because immortality... is only a question of time.

...

Dr. West: Listen, not a single day goes by, not a single moment that I don't remember those people. I recite their names to myself every morning. At first, I was so tortured by each failed reanimation, that it made me wanna quit the project. I'd prepared my resignation over and over again. But at the same time, each failed attempt brought us closer to our goal. Every time, it made more and more sense to try again. Did you think reanimating you would be the result of some miracle? The suffering of those people became a living hell for me. I couldn't sleep anymore. I lost my family when they found out about it. But that was the risk I had to take to get as far as we have. To bring you back to life, Marc.

...

Dr. West: I have done everything I can to treat you and ease your pain, Marc. I can't give you a better life than the one I already have. And you know what? Maybe that's the part you can't take. That the life I gave you isn't the one you were expecting. You wanted paradise for a few thousand dollars, and I only gave you the life you already have, with all its defects and all its limitations.

...

Marc [voiceover]: Can a man be alive only in his mind? Live only based on memories?

...

Marc [voiceover]: Could I live in the past, going over and over it with Mind Writer, filling it in, polishing it, making things up, until it reaches perfection? I don't know. There's only one thing I can see clearly now. Life is nothing more than a state of matter, like a gas or a liquid, a form of molecular organization, and there's nothing transcendent or divine about it. Its only objective is to perpetuate itself through motion, change, adaptation. Life isn't worried about any species, much less any individual. We're nothing more than the chunks of mud it uses as a vehicle. Life is what's scary, not death. That it's always on the verge of extinction. That it exists wherever it shouldn't. And the soul, you may ask. What about the soul? Well, maybe the soul is the bit that gets lost when you freeze the meat and then thawed out again.

...

Marc: All I need is the name of the product and the necessary dosage. Elizabeth: My job is to assist you in life, not to help you end it.

...

Marc [after drinking the poison]: Remember. Two calls. Yes. First the cyronics lab and one to 911. And cardiac...cardiac massage. Gently.Naomi: Right. Marc: Don't wake me up again.

...

Marc [voiceover]: Poor Dr. West. Lazarus wants to return to obscurity. He was right. Just like I wasn't ready to die, I wasn't ready to live like this, either. Like most people from my time, I can't accept anything less than the young, free and sensual world of the advertising Olympus I'd grown accustomed to. The frozen shop window existence. A heaven for skeptics. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the future... I hope this will help to clarify my final wish To be nothing again. To disappear. To finally rest in peace. Although, I have a suspicion. It's possible that you might never see this recording. It's possible that Prodigy Health Corporation, after investing so much into Project Lazarus, after putting so much time into me, might not permit this failure....

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

It's a comedy, but one packed with just enough "social references" to make it a clear reflection on how bizarre and fucked up our post-modern hashtag world can be.

At least from the perspective of an "unhinged stalker". And while Igby goes down to find this all out, Ingrid goes west.

Among other things, we discover what it means to be "Instagram-famous" in a world where pop culture, mass consumption and celebrities are now the new Gods. Think Frank Zappa's "plastic people" on steroids.

Social media it's called. Loved by some, loathed by others, it's everywhere. Indeed, it might even be argued [by me for example] that any number of folks right here are hell-bent on turning ILP into just another rendition of it. Philosophy for the chattering masses. A gab fest for folks who [apparently] have nothing better to do.

It really does come down though to how seriously you take it. Some will completely ignore it of course while others will argue that to the extent we do ignore it, it just grows and grows and grows. And that this will certainly come to have ominous political implications. In Trumpworld, for instance.

Which is all basically ignored here. Well, unless you read between the lines.

IMDb

Bill Murray is listed in the Very Special Thanks section of the credits. In the commentary, Aubrey Plaza says that while she and Murray were filming A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, he gave her his dark blue sweater when she became ill. She wears it in the bank scene and the tropical restaurant scene.

Charlotte [voiceover]: Is this real? Hashtag no filter. The couple that yogas together, stays together. Prayer hands emoji. A perfect day for a perfect wedding. Hashtag perfect so glad I married this weirdo. Fluttering heart emoji. Getting the band back together. Hashtag all the line. Yup! That's how we roll. Princess emoji. And the festivities begin. Twin hearts emoji. Fairy tale wedding. Hashtag about last night. Happy to be sharing this day with all my favorite humans. Hashtag blessed. The couple that yogas together stays together. A perfect day for a perfect wedding. Princess emoji. Yup! That's how we roll. All my favorite humans. Hashtag blessed. Hashtag all the line. Hashtag about last night. Hashtag perfect. Fairy tale wedding. Hashtag blessed.

...

Ingrid [in a mental institution]: "Dear Charlotte, I want you to know how sorry I am about what happened. I think having this time apart has been really good for me. I'm learning how to be present... How to live in the moment..."

...

Ingrid: Do you take cash?Dan: Are you an escort or something? Ingrid: No. Dan [looking into her bag filled with money]: Fuck! Are you a drug dealer? Ingrid: No. Dan: Okay, for real what you do? You got a backpack full of money. Suspicious. Ingrid: Yeah, if you really wanna know, my mom just died and left me a bunch of money.

Ezra: Maybe, you're confusing her with one of your insta-fans. Taylor: He's just giving me shit because I happen to engage with people on social media like the rest of the known universe, and my husband has a chronic case of technophobia. He still uses a flip phone. Ingrid: No! Taylor: Yeah.Exra: Stop. Stop. I just prefer to keep certain parts of my life, private. That's it. That's all.

...

Indrid [to Ezra]: Do you take cash?

...

Ingrid: Dan's gonna kill me. Taylor: Okay, you need to relax, it's just a scratch. And I bet he won't even notice it.

Dan: Is there anything else I need to know about Ingrid? Ingrid: We might have done all of the cocaine that we found in the...

...

Ingrid: Can we please just start over and pretend it never happened? Dan: Like a reboot? Ingrid: Okay! Yes. Like a reboot.

...

Ingrid: Why do you like Batman so much? Dan: What's not to like about Batman? Ingrid: I'm sorry, it's just, i don't understand. He's just another superhero like spiderman or superman.Dan: That's where you are wrong. Batman is the world's greatest detective. Nothing radioactive bit him. He's not from another planet. He's just like you or I. All Batman's powers come from within him. He had enough will and enough focus to make himself greater than what he was.

Ingrid: You okay? Ezra: I'm not an artist. I'm a fucking charlatan. Ingrid: No, you're not. Your paintings are awesome. Ezra: You're my only sale. Ingrid: But Taylor said they were really popular. Ezra: She would say that, wouldn't she? Yeah. Everything's the best, with her. "Have you been to this new restaurant? It's the best!" "Have you tried these... These new clothes are the best!" "It's the best! It's the best! It's the best!" It's not the fucking best. It's fucking exhausting. Ingrid: You know what, I actually kind of know what you mean. When we were in Joshua tree, she told me this secret, and she told me not to tell anyone. But I walked in on her telling Harley the same, exact thing earlier. Ezra: What secret?

...

Ingrid: Taylor has a plan to buy the house next door to you guys, and turn it into some hotel slash store. And she wants to call it "desert door." Ezra: Desert-- desert door? Ingrid: Yeah. It's a reference to her favorite book, you know, The Deer Park. Ezra: The Deer Park is my favorite book. Taylor's never even read it.

...

Nicky: You're fucked. I'm gonna make a deal with you. I'm not gonna give you your phone back. But I'm willing to rent it out to you. For a very small fee. Infrid: How much? Nicky: Five thousand a month.

...

Ingrid ]to some kids in a parking lot]: Excuse me. Kid: Yeah? Ingrid: I'll give one of you 200 bucks if you punch me in the face. I'm serious.

...

Taylor [on the phone to Ingrid]: Um, this is gonna sound weird, but have you heard from Nicky at all?

...

Ezra [on the phone]: Nicky told us everything about the phone, the kidnapping. If he hadn't tried to blackmail you, you'd be in jail right now. You understand? Ingrid: Ezra, wait. Ezra: Don't call here again.

Ezra [on the phone]: Listen to me, you psycho. If you don't stop this shit right fucking now I'm calling the fucking cops. Do you understand? It's three in the fucking morning. Just leave us the fuck alone!!

...

Ingrid: Why are you acting like that? It's just me, Ingrid. Taylor: I'm sorry. Are you...are you actually insane? 'Cause you do know Nicky almost died because of you, right? Ingrid: I thought we were friends. We had so much fun together. Taylor: Oh, my god. Ingrid...we were never friends because everything about you is such a fucking lie. You just are some weird freak that found me on instagram. And that's basically all this has been. Ingrid: Everything about me is a lie. Taylor: Okay, well...what?Ingrid: Everything about you is a fucking lie. It is. Your brother is a drug addict. Your husband is an alcoholic who fucking hates you. And you pretend to be some cool L.A. chick, but you're full of shit. Ezra told me everything. He told me that when you moved here, you were lame and basic, and you had no friends. You were just like me.

...

Taylor: You know what, Ingrid, um...I was, uh, actually never like you...because you are a sad and pathetic, and very sick person, and you need professional help. Nicky: Game over.

...

Ingrid [making a suicide video]: Hey guys! It's me, Ingrid. I've never done this before, but...I didn't have anyone else to talk to so I figured, why not. I just wanted to tell you guys that basically everything I've posted in the last couple of months is a total lie. I haven't been living, some like, glamorous life in L.A. I'm just...a loser. I'm pathetic. And I know there's something wrong with me, but I don't know how to fix it, and I don't know how to change. And I just... Don't think I can change. So maybe I'm just...maybe this is just who I am. And maybe I'm just tired of trying to make people like me. I'm tired of pretending like, someone I'm not. And I'm tired of being alone. And I'm just...just tired of being me so...I just...feel like... If you don't have anyone to share anything with, then what'd the point of living? Yeah, so I guess I'm just making this video... So you guys can see the real me. At least once.

Then she swallows the pills.

Dan [to Ingrid recovering in the hispital]: Your little suicide video went viral. Your face is all over the Internet. Look at them. Thousands, and thousands and thousands. You're an inspiration, babe. You have a hashtag. "Feel better soon". "Praying for your recovery" "You're too good to do that to yourself" "I gotta tell you, you're fucking beautiful" "you're a hero".

...

Ingrid [voiceover]: Hashtag I am Ingrid.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

And, of course, it comes at night. So, it's only a matter of imagining whether or not it can come out at night when you're around.

Can you imagine yourself in a situation more or less like it?

Clearly, to the extent that you can, it becomes all the more frightening. And given the potential for catastrophic world wide epidemics that pop up in the news from time to time --- ebola, sars, bird flu etc. -- there's really no telling what is down the pike.

The plot is familiar. A small group of people [a family in this case] are in full-fledge survival mode. Then out of the blue they have company. Outsiders. What to do? Not only do they now have the outbreak to deal with, but must come to terms with any and all of the changes that the new arrivals bring with them. Who to trust? What to believe?

And, of course, this: What is the right thing to do? A whole new world, a whole new perspective on virtue. The age-old dilemma in films of this sort: there's what you want to do; there's what you have to do. And then the part in which the reality you construct inside your head may or may not be in sync with whatever is in fact really going on. But, as we all know, our behaviors are invariably predicated on what we think we know is real. So, in the end, it often comes down to being able to demonstrate to others why they should think what you do. In other words, being right may or may not save the day.

So, what's scariest of all can sometimes be not what you see, but what you don't see. Or what you can't see.

Sarah: Can you hear me? Dad, can you hear me? [Bud nods a weary yes] Sarah: You don't need to fight it. You can just let it all go. Everything's okay. [cue Sarah speaking with a mask on] Sarah: I love you, dad. I do. I'm so sorry. Oh, god...

Is this "it"?

Paul: He has to be involved...in everything from now on...everything. If he's not, then we're doing him a disservice. Sarah: I don't care, Paul...he's 17. He shouldn't have been there. He shouldn't have seen that.

Paul: I just wanna talk. And I want honest answers. If you give me honest answers, then this water yours. Understand? Why'd you break into my house? Will [tied to a tree]: I promise...I promise you, I... I didn't think anyone was in it. There's no lights, and things boarded up. It looked abandoned from the outside. Paul: What were you looking for? Will: Water...supplies, anything. My family... I have a family... My wife and our boy in the woods.

And on and on: Trust him? Believe him?

Paul: Do you have any idea what's going on out there? Will: No. As soon as people in the city started getting sick, we got out, got as far away as possible. If there's a grid left, I don't even know how to be on it. Paul: So you're out there driving 80 miles, and you didn't see anything? Will: No. We didn't see anything or anyone.

...

Will: Look, look at my eyes. I'm telling you the truth. I never would've broken in like that if I thought the house was occupied, but I was desperate. I got no hard feelings at you. You did what you had to, you had to protect your family. But if you can spare some water for my family, i can trade for it. Got food. Paul: How much? Will: Got plenty to trade for. Paul: I'm asking how much?Will: Two goats, six chickens, and some canned food as well. Paul: Are the animals healthy? Will: Yes, sir. I promise you, if you need food, I have it. My family is all that matters to me. I know you can understand that. You're a good person. You're just trying to protect your family. But don't let mine die cause of it. Help me, and I can help you.

...

Sarah: I think if he does have a family out there that we should consider bringing them back here. Paul: That's a big jump. Everything he said could be a lie. Sarah: I know that. Paul: I know that you want to believe him. Sarah: Is that wrong? Paul: We just gotta be smart about it, we can't be emotional...Sarah: I'm not being emotional. He knows where we live now. We can't just let him go. The more people we have here, the better we can defend it. He found us, other people will too. They could bring the animals here. We wouldn't have to just trade for them. It's the smartest option.

...

Paul [to Sarah]: I'm not bringing anyone back here until I know they're not sick. It took bud less than a day to show signs. I'll wait there three to be certain. You be strong. Don't go outside unless you absolutely have to. And if I don't come back...don't come looking for me.

...

Paul: Good people, huh? Travis: Yes...I like them here. Paul: Just keep it in perspective, okay? I don't need to tell you but...you can't trust anyone but family. As good as they seem. Just don't forget that, okay?Travis: Yeah.

...

Paul: I think Will and I should be the only ones who go outside for a while. We don't know what made Stanley sick, it coulda been an animal, another person, anything. Travis...you didn't go inside the room before we got there, correct? Travis: Positive. Will: You just opened the door, you didn't go in? Travis: I didn't touch the door. Paul: What? Travis: It was already open. Sarah: The door was open when you got there? Travis: Yeah. Sarah: Then who opened the door?

...

Paul: Travis...come here. I just want you to look me in the eye and tell me that you're...telling the truth. You didn't touch the door? Travis: No. Paul: Okay, did you touch him? Andrew? Did you touch him? Travis: Yeah, I mean...yeah. I held his hand and I...and I brought him to his room. Paul: And you weren't wearing gloves and mask, right? Travis: I mean, dad...why would I wear them inside the house?

...

Paul: What's going on? Travis: It's Andrew. I think he might be sick. Paul: What? What are you talking about? Travis: He was crying and I was listening in the attic. They said they need to leave.

...

Travis: What do you want to do? Sarah: We don't have many options. Travis: What does that mean? Sarah: If they want to leave, they're gonna want to take our food and water. Travis: No, why can't we give them what's fair, and take them back to the house they were at. Sarah: Where do you think they're going if they run out? Paul: You haven't seen people when they get desperate. Travis: They wouldn't come back here and put us at risk like that. Sarah: We don't know that. Travis: Come on! Sarah: We don't know these people. We don't know if any of what they said is even true. This is the man that tried to break into our house. Travis: Cause he was trying to get food and water for his family. Dad would've done the same thing. I don't think we could take the chance. I don't think we can risk it. Travis: You don't get it. If they're sick...then I am too.

...

Will [pointing a gun at Paul who's wearing a gas mask]: Why is your mask on? Nobody's sick here. Take it off. Take the fucking mask off!!

...

Will: Listen, Paul, I'm sorry, okay? We appreciate everything that you've done, but we want to leave. We're all packed up. I know how you are. But if you go near my wife or my kid, I'll end your fuckin' life. Listen...we just want what's fair. We want enough food and enough water, then we're gonna go, and you're never gonna see us again.

You are a doctor at a small clinic. One night the door bell rings. You decide not to see who it is. But the next day you find out the woman who rang the bell is found dead. Was she murdered? You feel guilty. You might have saved her life. You are now determined to find out all that you can about this woman.

In other words, something happens and things changes. Do one thing, one set of consequences, do something else and an entirely different set of consequences.

These things happen all the time to us. In contexts more or less dramatic. The dots get connected. But how much understanding of the relationships do we really have; and how much control do we have over them?

And then the question of identity. Who is this young woman? What happened to her? Why was she at the clinic? And then this: Will she be put in a box and buried in a potter's field...without so much as a name to put on the marker?

We do know that she is an immigrant. And a sex worker.

And here the two worlds collide. The world of the caring and compassionate and civilized doctor and the world of what can only be described as the underbelly of society. And here we bump into any number of scumbags willing to exploit any number of desperate victims. You wonder if, as part of the civilized world yourself, you would go this far.

Jenny [a young doctor]: I want you to learn one thing, just one. Learn to make a good diagnosis. If a patients suffering moves you, you make a bad one.Julien [an intern]: I couldn't help it.Jenny: A good doctor has control over his emotions.

...

Jenny [after the intern turns in response to the door bell]: Don't go, we've run over by an hour....Someone who comes this late doesn't care how tired we are.Julien: Maybe it was urgent.Jenny: Then they'd have rung twice. Don't let patients tire you, or you won't make a proper diagnosis.

...

Jenny: Was it something serious?Ben [police detective]: I woman was found dead by the river, near the building site.

...

Detective [after Jenny watches a video of an obviously frightened young black girl ringing the clinic buzzer and pounding on the door]: Do you recognize her?Jenny: No....She's so young.Detective: What could have made her come back to ring the bell?Jenny: Maybe the light from the waiting room.Detective: We thought maybe she had been there before.

...

Jenny [to Julien]: I felt like you did when the bell rang. I wanted to open the door too...but I don't know what happened. I stopped you from going just because you wanted to. To get the upper hand.

Yes, the complexities embedded in consequences.

Doctor Habron [to Jenny]: You couldn't know, but you should have let her in.

...

Jenny: I can't accept the idea they'll bury her with no name. No one will know it's her in the ground. If I'd opened the door, she'd be alive, like me.Doctor Habron: True, but then again you're not the one who killed her.

...

Jenny [to Bryan]: Imagine your mother is found dead, far from here, without any ID on her. They'd bury her but couldn't let anyone know. You'd never know. You'd keep waiting for her to come home...Had you seen that girl before?

...

Jenny: Trust me. I won't tell any one.Bryan: Not my mom or my dad?Jenny: No one.Bryan: I saw her. She was sucking off an old man in a camper van.

...

Mr. Lambert: I have nothing to say to you.Jenny: Did your son tell you not to talk? I just want to know that girl's name, nothing else. I swear I won't tell anyone. I can keep a secret. I'm a doctor. I beg you, Mr. Lambert. I beg you. If you were in the van and she said something that might tell me her name.

...

Jenny: You can still change your mind. Remember your first day? You said you always dreamed of being a doctor.Julien: When I saw that kid having his fit, shaking all over...I saw myself when my dad hit me. All I got from him was beatings. I wanted to be a doctor to treat him or to treat myself, I don't know. Or to be a better doctor than ours who thought I bruised myself playing.

...

Father of Bryan: Yoy saw Bryan and hasseled him again about that girl. Please stop seeing him and talking to him.Mother of Byran: His indigestion is back.Jenny: I met him by chance. I wanted to see his friend.Father: I told you he had nothing to do with it. We're changing doctors as well.Mother: I understand that girl is haunting you. As you said, you feel guilty. But you can't make our son sick over it.

...

Jenny: Did you go back to check her?Bryan's father: No. I thought that she had just fainted...that she'd wake up.Jenny: The autopsy says she didn't die from impact, but from blood lost while unconscious.Bryan's father: You mean I let her die? Is that it? Who do you think I am?! Don't look down at me! I can't sleep because of that girl. She's in my head all the time....If you'd opened your door, it would never have happened.Jenny: She's in my head all the time too.

...

Jenny: I won't tell anyone. But you have to tell the police.Bryan's father: No. I can't. Everyone will know. I'll lose my job. I'll go to jail. I'll lose everything....Why would I ruin my life?Jenny: Because she's asking us to.Bryan's father: Who?Jenny: The girl.Bryan's father: She doesn't care. She's dead. Jenny: If she was dead, she wouldn't be in our heads.

...

Cybercafe cashier [after a long pause]: Before going to the police I wanted to thank you for coming to the cybercafe and showing me the photo....the photo of my sister. Because you came, I felt ashamed and made up my mind. I was afraid my guy would put me back on the streets. He gave me a fake passport so the police wouldn't know he made Felicie work. She wasn't 18 yet.Jenny: Her name was Felicie?Cybercafe cashier: Yes. Felicie Koumba.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Then it depends on how far back you go. You can go all the way back to the white Europeans "discovering America" and then, over the course of the centuries, reconfiguring any number of "Native American" communities into reservations.

Then any number of conflicting political narratives will start in on grappling with the consequences of that.

On the other hand, there is always the intersection between this and the actual lives individual men and women go about forging in the course of sustaining themselves from day to day. What parts are embedded historically in the inevitable political baggage and what parts are really only your own damn fault?

And this is basically the party line embedded in the liberal and conservative narratives. Folks are either the victims of society and in need of our assistance or they are refusing to take responsibility for their own lives. Their own choices. Their own behaviors. It always seems to be either one or the other. And hardly ever a complex intertwining of both.

Here though the chararacters are portrayed as "fully developed human beings rather than as stereotypes." And that does introduce complexity into the plot. And that introduces ambiguity. And then there's the character embedded in the land itself. The reservation. What might be called the "outback" in other places. And It is far, far removed from what an FBI agent stationed in Las Vegas is used to.

Look for the chaos [and sometimes the utter confusion] entangled in "jurisdiction".

IMDb

During the course of the shoot, writer-director Taylor Sheridan was visited on set by some Shoshone tribal leaders who astonished him with the revelation that, at that very time, there were 12 unsolved murders of young women on a reservation of about 6,000 people. Due to a 1978 landmark government ruling (Oliphant v. Suquamish), the Supreme Court stripped tribes of the right to arrest and prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes on Indian land. If neither victim nor perpetrator are Indian, a county or state officer must make the arrest. If the perpetrator is non-Indian and the victim an enrolled member, only a federally-certified agent has that right. If the opposite is true, a tribal officer can make the arrest, but the case must still go to federal court. This quagmire creates a jurisdictional nightmare by choking up the legal process on reservations to such a degree, many criminals go unpunished indefinitely for serious crimes.

The quote that concludes the film ("While missing person statistics are compiled for every other demographic, none exist for Native American women.") isn't entirely true. There is one more demographic that the FBI has always refused to compile statistics for: missing children.

Wilma: Don't let Casey out of your sight on the Rez, okay? Cory: Like I said, I'm gonna leave him with your folks while I scout. Wilma: You know what I mean. Cory: Yeah, I do. I won't.

...

Cory: Put your hand upon his nose. Let him smell you and breath you. Let him know you. He will love you forever. Hey...so what do you think of that, son? Casey: That was pretty cowboy, huh? Cory: No, son. That was all Arapahoe.

...

Cory [to Dan his father in law]: That's what the tracks say. Momma's teaching her kits how to hunt. She's teaching 'em on livestock. Momma just got her whole family killed.

...

Ben [to Cory of Jane]: See what they sent us?

...

Cory: She ran until she dropped...here. See the pool of blood where her face hit the snow? Now it gets twenty below here at night. So if you fill your lungs up with that cold air. When you're running....it could freeze em up. Your lungs fill up with blood, you start coughing it up So...wherever she came from, she ran all the way here. Her lungs burst here. She curled up in that tree line drowned up in her own blood. Jane: How far do you think someone can run barefoot out here? Cory: Oh...I don't know. How to gauge someone's will to live...especially in these conditions? But I knew that girl. She was a fighter. So no matter how far you think she ran...I can guarantee you she ran farther.

...

Randy [the M.E.]: This is very prosecutable as a murder. Clearly she wouldn't have been running through the snow if she hadn't been attacked, but I can't list the cause of death as a homicide. Jane: And I can't get an FBI team to the reservation unless it's listed as a homicide. I'm not here to solve this. I'm here to obtain a cause of death and then send a team here that can. Randy: Look, present the rape, present the assault and I'm sure....Jane: Those aren't under the jurisdiction of the FBI. Those fall to the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

...

Jane: I don't mean to offend you. I'm trying to understand the dynamic here, Mr. Hanson.Martin [father of the victim]: Why is it that whenever you people try to help us, you always insult us first, huh?

...

Cory [who had lost his own daughter]: I went to a grief seminar in Casper. You know that? The counselor came up to me after the seminar...sat down next to me. He said something that stuck with me. I don't know of it's what he said. Or it's how he said it. He says, I got some good news and I got some bad news. The bad news is you're never gonna be the same. You'll never be whole. Not ever again. You lost your daughter. Nothing's ever going to replace that. The good news is as soon as you accept that and let yourself suffer you'll allow yourself to visit her in your mind. You remember all the love that she gave. All the joy she knew. The point is, Martin you can't steer from the pain. If you do you'll rob yourself. You'll rob yourself of every memory of her. Every last one. From the first step to her last smile. You kill 'em all. Just take the pain, Martin. Do you hear me? You take it. It's the only way to keep her with you. Martin: I'm just tired, Cory. I'm just so tired of fighting this life.

...

Jane: Shouldn't we wait for back up?Ben: This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.

...

Chip: She said "was"...what did she mean by was? What Did She Mean By Was. WHAT DID SHE MEAN BY WAS?!!Cory: She means I found her raped and killed right over there, son.

...

Jane: The two we have in custody say anything? Ben: They ain't the talking kind, Jane. These kids...they expect to go to prison. Hell, I think they look forward to it. You know? Three hots, and a cot, and free cable? Anything is better then being here the way they see it.

...

Cory: I'm not going to stand here and tell you that life's fair, 'cause it ain't. To either of us. But you know, what do we go? This land is all we got left. Chip: What is this "we" shit...? Only thing native about you is your ex-wife and a daughter you couldn't protect.

...

Chip: You think this is who I wanted to be? I get so mad. I want to fight the whole world. You got any idea what's that feel like.Cory: I do. I decided to fight the feeling instead. Know why? Cause I figured the world would win.

...

Cory [to Chip]: You gonna lecture me about protecting people? While you deal the shit that's killing em? Unlike most people, you had every chance to get the hell out if that's what you wanted. You got the Army. You got College. Whatever is your choice. Look what you choose. Look what you chose. God damn you.

...

Cory [to Ben]: We don't catch wolves looking at where they might be. You look where they've been. They've been right here.

...

Cory: That's a picture of my daughter Emily. She passed three years ago. Jane: I'm sorry. Cory: You want to know how, don't you? Jane: I do, but...Cory: Makes two of us.

...

Jane: Go get him. Cory: I won't bring him back. You have to know that. Jane: I do. Go get him.

...

Cory: Do you know where we are? Pete: No. Cory: Gannet Peak. Highest mountain in Wyoming. On the hottest day in August, still there's a foot of snow. Today, too cold to snow.

...

Pete [to Cory]: What the fuck? Where the fuck are my boots?!!

...

Cory: Hey, I need you to be honest with me, right? You get drunk, get lonely. Then what you get? You did it. Just be man and say it. Say, "I raped her." Pete: I raped her. I raped her...yeah! Cory: Her boyfriend...when he got in your way did you beat him to death? [Pete nods]Cory: Look a nod's not gonna cut it, ok? I need you to say it. Pete: We beat him. We made him dead. Cory: Okay. I'm gonna cut you lose. You're free to go.

...

Cory: I'm a man of my word. You have told the truth. Let me give you a chance. Let me give you the same chance that she got. Pete: What chance did she get? Cory: If you can make it to that highway, you're free man. Pete: Where is the highway? Cory: You know how far that drill camp was from where I found Natalie's body? 6 miles, bare foot.

...

Jane: You saved my life. Cory: No. Jane, you're a tough woman. You saved your own life. Jane: We both should be honest. I got lucky. Cory: Ah. well, luck don't live out here. Luck lives in the city. Don't live out here. It lives whether you get hit by a bus or not. Whether your bank is robbed or not. Or someone's on the damn cell phone when he comes up to a crosswalk. That's luck. Out here you survive or you surrender. That's determined by your strength and bare spirit. Wolves don't kill the unlucky deer. They kill the weak ones. You fought for your life Jane. And now you get to walk away with it.

...

Cory: What's with the paint? Martin: It's my death face. Cory: Is that right? How would you know what that is?Martin: I don't. Just made it up.

...

Martin: I heard about what happened. I heard there's one still missing. Cory: No. No one's missing. Martin: How did he go out? Cory: With a whimper.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Nothing new here. Tough guy loses his job. His marriage is shaky. He gets tangled up in the dope business. Something goes wrong. He ends up in prison. The prison is bursting at the seams with enemies. The cohorts of the enemies outside the prison kidnap his wife. He's then forced to either do their bidding or she dies. Or so it seems.

Just don't expect much more. It creates a world -- a descent into hell -- with characters that are larger then life. Caricatures some will call them. But it's a world so far removed from the routines that most of us experience from day to day, it can't help but fascinate us. Well, some of us. It's then only a matter of wondering how far removed it is from "the real thing".

Anyway, the bottom line in films of this sort generally revolves around your reaction to the tough guy. The so-called "anti-hero". He either resonates with you or he doesn't. You're either plugging for him or you're not. He either is or is not in possession of a "moral compass". And, given that it received a 92% fresh rating on 75 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, he certainly resonated with most of the critics.

As one critic put it: "A grade-A piece of meathead cinema."

It's yet another peek into a world that revolves entirely around a set of rules. The rules convey a narrative that swallows whole all the rules that you once abided by in the "free world". Everything is taken seriously. Do or die. And you are ever and always expected to abide by the convict code. As though it is not even be possible to imagine living any other way. Only here the lone wolf reconfigures all the rules.

In any event, your "identity" outside the walls simply dissolves into that which everyone around expects of you. Only [again] not so much here.

Bottom line: Once they get to Redleaf it is a totally improbable plot. And then in Cell Block 99 it is all but unbelievable. But only if that matters to you.

IMDb

Vince Vaughn put on 15lbs of muscle and trained as a boxer for 3 months prior to walking on set. Vaughn himself stated that this made the fight choreography much easier to learn.

Upon first arriving at the prison, two separate prisoners make reference to a prison in Austria. They are most likely referring to Justice Center Leoben which has been recognized as one of the "nicest" prisons in the world due to its modern and luxurious architecture and furniture.

Bradley: I'm gonna call Gil. Lauren: You're gonna be a drug dealer? Bradley: No. I'm gonna drive packages for a friend. Lauren: You said you would never work for Gil. Bradley: So we're both breaking promises today. I want us in a better home than this shithole. With kids and happy. I'm tired of getting the goddamn skim milk and hoping that luck brings out the cream, 'cause it won't, not ever.

There's a story behind that.

Prostitute: Hey, Johnny rebel. Bradley: Howdy. Prostitute: You gonna give me a sample this time? Bradley: Talk to your boss. Prostitute: Come on. Let me earn it direct. I promise I can put a great big smile on each of those nuts. Bradley: No, thanks. They don't want anyone to see their braces.

...

Gil: How'd the transaction go? Bradley: Never a problem with Cuz. Gil: Yeah, I like that nigger. Or is it.. is it "nigga" with an a at the end, when you're saying it nice? Bradley: Don't think someone like you can say that word any way polite.

...

Bradley: Sounds like he brought amigos. Gil: Mexicans ain't comfortable being by themselves. You know how they grow up. Five to a bed. 10 beds per adobe.

...

Detective: Every once in a while, I see a man in that chair who could just as easily be on this side of the table, a man principled, who had a run of bad luck and just went the wrong way.Bradley: I'm not gonna talk.

...

Detective: I know that this is your first offense, but you're looking at four years, maybe five. Do you know that drug traffickers actually serve those sentences?Bradley: I'm aware that the system is harder on guys that distribute drugs than it is on men who commit acts of violence against women and children. Do you think that's fair? Detective: You ever see a man with meth mouth? Hmm? You ever see the 14-year-old girl who's addicted... Bradley: I'm not gonna argue with you, Larry. I'm not gonna give you any info. I know what I did, and I know what the sentence is gonna be. It's done.

Bradley: Who are you? Placid Man: Sit down, Mr. Thomas. Bradley: Where's Dr. Pelman?Placid Man: Remain calm. If you call any attention to us, I will leave. And you will regret my departure for the rest of your life. Nod that you understand. [Bradley nods]Placid Man: My employer sends his regards. Bradley: You work for Eleazar. Why are you here? Placid Man: Your betrayal cost my employer $3.2 million. I'm here to settle that matter.[he shows him a cell phone photo of his wife bound and gagged]Placid Man: There is an abortionist from Korea. He works for my employer. He claims that he can clip the limbs of a fetus yet leave the child in such a condition that it will live to be born. This little operation will only happen if you don't pay your debt to my employer.Bradley: How?Placid Man: There is a prisoner who my employer wants dead. He is serving a life sentence at the Redleaf Detention Center. Bradley: I'm in the Fridge for seven years. How in the hell am I supposed to choke out some guy over in Redleaf? Placid Man: Redleaf is maximum security. Show the staff here that you have to be transferred.

We know where this is going.

Prison guard: Why the hell did you do this?Bradley: Didn't like my prison shoes.

...

Warden: Mr. Thomas. Look at me. The Redleaf Detention Center is classified as a maximum-security facility. But there's another term I prefer...one that I think will give you a clearer picture. Minimum freedom. If you make trouble, your minimum freedom will get smaller. So small that it becomes microscopic. Do you understand?Bradley: I do. Warden: Put a "sir" on that. Btadley: I do, sir.

...

Warden [Bradley]: The guards here aren't like those faggots over there at the Fridge. You can test us if you want to. Prisoners are expensive, and we're only too happy to help the state balance its budget by deploying some cheap lead.

Bradley: Who do they keep in Cell Block 99? Derrick: Child molesters, rapists, guys with death sentences...psychotics.

...

Warden [to Bradley]: You just lost your minimum freedom. You're going to 99.

...

Warden: I suspect that Amnesty International would frown upon the contents of this room. Cell block 99 is the prison within the prison. You will stay down here until you're sorted out. Or carried out. Stand him up. For the next month, you'll wear this. Turn it on. Each time you misbehave, you earn five points. Each point gets you one of these. [Bradley is zapped with electricity]Warden: You currently have 25 points. These shall be dispensed to you over the coming week. When you are eating, when you are sleeping, when you are pissing, and when you are shitting.

...

Lauren: Who's there? Placid Man: My employer has asked me to take a few more pictures. Lauren: Is that him? Placid Man: That's the abortionist. He is here to perform a preliminary examination. Lauren: No. You can't. You can't. This a baby girl you're talking about. Placid Man: It is lamentable that she didn't have smarter parents.

...

Eleazar: Your heroics cost me $3.2 million, as well as my freedom for an undetermined period of time, and because of you, my sister is now a widow. Her husband was Pedro whom you shot in the back. Bradley: Let my wife go. You and I can settle this however.

...

Eleazar [to his thugs]: Kill Mr. Thomas and I'll double your wages. Bradley: Have them kick in for your funeral.

...

Eleazar [on the cell phone]: If you do not hear from me in 10 minutes, commence the abortionist. If you have not heard from me within the hour, dismantle the mother and flush her down the toilet.

...

Bradley: Tell me your code or it's the other leg. Eleazar: 7-7-7.

...

Placid Man: What a mess...

...

Warden: What's going on in there? Bradley: I'm executing Eleazar....They say the head stays alive for a little while after it's been cut off. I hope so. Warden: Put your hands on your head and turn around. Bradley: 78 days.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

1] would that it could be like this today2] may it never be like that again

And look at Detroit today. Now that big chunks of the automobile industry [and heavy industry in general] has shifted manufacturing abroad, all the jobs that once afforded working class folks [with high school diplomas] access to unions and the middle class, are gone. And we know what has taken its place.

And yet in other respects things were far worse back then. At least for many in the black communities.

And in particular with respect to the police department. In other words, as bad as some folks think things are now, things were once considerably worse. Or so it certainly seems here.

Then between the protests on the street, the haggling behind the scenes [between the powers that be], the rioting and the looting, the line between the personal and the political gets increasingly blurred. And it is here that films of this sort tend to jump the shark. They can't decide whether to focus in on the dramatic -- historical -- events unfolding all around them, or zoom in instead on the "personalities".

And then, finally, there's the part that revolves around that which the film depicts and that which actually occurred 50 years ago. It said to be a "dramatization" of the actual historical events. As one reviewer puts it: "I would give this movie a 10 as a propaganda piece, zero as a documentary..."

In other words, there is no way in hell that folks are not going to take out of this film what they first put into it: their own political prejudices.

IMDb

Survivor Julie Hysell was on set throughout most of the shoot. Vietnam vet Robert Greene was still alive, but the producers couldn't reach him.

Director Kathryn Bigelow was inspired to unearth this event by the Ferguson (MO) riots (Aug. 2014) where a black man was fatally shot by a white police officer.

The raid on the "Blind Pig" was due to pressure and repeated demands from black Baptist ministers, who hated blind pigs for drawing money to liquor and prostitution that should have gone into collection plates. The ministers urged the white mayor, Jerome Cavanaugh, to shut down the illegal clubs.

Once a proud Polish community, Hamtramck is now a Muslim one. The Poles have been replaced with Yemenis and Bangladeshis. Hamtramck now has the first Muslim-majority city council in the U.S.

Title card: The Great Migration set in motion before World War I would spur some 6 million African Americans to leave the cotton fields of the South for the lure of factory jobs and civil right in the North. After World War II, white Americans began their own migration to the suburbs, drawing money and jobs aways from increasingly segregated urban neighborhoods. By the 60's, racial tensions had reached a boiling point. Rebellions erupted in Harlem, Philadelphia, Watts, and Newark. In Detroit, Aftrican Americans were restricted to a few overcrowded neighborhoods, patrolled by a mostly white police force known for its aggression. The promise of equal opportunity for all turned out to be an illusion. Change was inevitable. It was only a matter of how, and when.

White Cop: We had to use the front door.Frank: Shit! White Cop: Make it a public display. Frank: I almost feel bad for them. We gotta get out of here. Quickly.

...

John Conyers: I know you're angry. I'm angry, too. This city has problems, especially with the policemen. We have problems. However change doesn't happen overnight. But change is coming. Let's work together! Protester: Nah! Bring Stokely Carmichael down here! We don't wanna hear from your ass! Conyers: Look here. This is what I need you to do! I need you to not mess up your own neighborhood. This is your home! Protester: Yeah, burn it down! Conyers: Burning it down is not the answer!

...

Newscaster: Here in Detroit, a city of war where snipers hide on rooftops, the violence continues. US Army paratroopers, National Guardsmen, state and local police are continuing the fight against a handful of snipers. On the city's west side, a 150-block area is off-limits to everybody. This is no man's land, an area of destruction and devastation.

...

Lyndon Johnson: There is no American right to loot stores or to burn buildings or to fire rifles from the rooftops. That is crime. And crime must be dealt with forcefully and swiftly, and certainly under law.

...

Protest leader [mocking LBJ]: LBJ tell you that, "Violence never accomplishes anything...my fellow Americans." Don't you see, the real problem with violence is that we have never been violent. We have been too nonviolent!

...

Newscaster: 1,100 National Guardsmen have been rushed into as many areas as they can cover, protecting police. Looters carry off thousands of dollars' worth of goods with a gay sort of leisure. Many negro shop owners put up sign reading "Soul Brother" to avoid damage. But the fire bombers and looters are indiscriminate.

...

Detective: That guy you shot at didn't make it home. Ambulance found him bleeding out under a car. Krauss: Are we sure it's the same guy? Detective: He's the only Virginia Park shooting today. You carry a shotgun, he had shotgun wounds. You wanna play ballistics? Krauss: Jesus Christ, I'm sorry. Detective: That's it? Krauss: What else? Detective: You shot him in the back. Krauss: Right. He was... He was running away from me. Where else do you want me to shoot? Detective: My point was him being no threat to you. Krauss: In hindsight, but I'm thinking...why is he running away from me...if all he did was steal some groceries? What if he killed somebody in that grocery store? He's avoiding the police. What do you assume from that? Detective: You don't assume. If he had a weapon in his hand, that's another story. We don't shoot for robberies. Krauss: Detective, you know it's a war zone out there, right? Detective: Yeah. 10th had to shut down. Krauss: They're destroying the city. We're facilitating that with the message we send...which is that it's okay, go ahead, burn down your houses, rob a store. It's total chaos. And where does that lead us long term, Detective? Detective: All right, kid. Thank you. Patrolman: Anytime. Detective: I'm recommending murder charges. You go back to work, wait to hear from the DA. Patrolman: Yes, sir.Detective: And kid...calm down out there.

...

White national guardsman: It's good to have some quiet. We were at Black Bottom earlier today. We actually took sniper fire. Had one, right by here. Melvin [black security guard]: Ain't no snipers here, man. Just you and me and the people partying in that motel. National guardsman: How long do you think this is gonna last? National guardsman: Yeah, how long till these negros people quit? What do you think?Melvin: How the hell am I supposed to know?

...

Krauss: What's the deal with the girls?Cop: I found them with the big nigger down the end. Krauss: Same room? You find anything? Cop: Nothing.

Lee: They're gonna kill us, man. Melvin: Why? You gonna be crazy? Lee: They the ones that's acting crazy. They lost their mind when they seen a couple white girls in a room with a black man. Melvin: They're lookin' for a sniper, okay? Lee: But Carl wasn't no sniper, man. Melvin: So if a guy goes for your gun, you gonna let him have it because he's black? Come on! Lee: A cop has a shotgun like yours, right? You hold that tight with two hands. How you even gonna try to take that?

...

Sergeant [from Michagan State Police]: What's going on? Cop: I gotta tell you, Detroit PD is going nuts in there. Sergeant: What do you mean? Cop: Looks like they're terrorizing suspects, beating and so forth, trying to get a confession. Sergeant: Well, that's not correct, they got their civil rights. Cop: That's what I'm saying. Don't look right to me.Sergeant: All right. Let's let them have the case. I don't wanna get involved in any civil rights mix-up, you know? Let's go.

Krauss: We've got all the time in the world. We are gonna get to the bottom of this. So think very carefully about how you answer our questions, or you're gonna end up like your friends in the next room. How long you been pimpin' out these young girls, huh? Destroying their bodies and minds. Greene: I just met 'em. I ain't pimpin'. I just got back from the war. Krauss: You're a veteran? Greene: Yes, sir. Krauss: Fuckin' stupid do you think I am? You wear army green, you try to be a fucking serviceman. We don't need pimps in the army. Probably drove a fucking supply truck.Greene: I was airborne.

...

Krauss: Aren't you ashamed of yourselves? Karen: You're the one checking out my tits. Krauss: You're having sex with niggers. Karen: It's 1967, asshole. Honestly. Krauss: It doesn't bother you? The Afro Sheen in their hair? The way it smells? Karen: You're on some trip. Cop: You think you can come into my city and pimp out a bunch of young girls? Greene: I said it wasn't like that. Krauss: I don't care if you were in the army. I'll drown all you pimps in the river until the city's clean.

...

Demens: So that's done. Krauss: Good. Great job. Demens: I didn't think I could do it, but I did it. Boy, I feel funny. Krauss: Yeah. It's the right thing. He'll talk now. Demens: What do you mean?

...

Krauss: You shot him, Demens!Demens: Yeah, I got him. Krauss: Jesus Christ, Marty. We weren't actually shooting the other guys. We're playing with them. Demens: What do you mean? Playing. Playing what? Krauss: A game. A game to get them to talk, scare the shit out of 'em. Interrogation tactics. Fuck.

...

Krauss [to Demens]: Listen to me. Oh, fuck. He grabbed your gun, all right, and you warned him, okay? And you were forced to shoot him, okay? Line of duty. Get your fucking story straight. Oh, fuck. Hey, get your head straight. I'm serious.

...

Detective: You need to think real hard. You need to answer me. Melvin: All due respect, I am telling the truth. I'm not lying. I told you what I saw. I saw these kids...the police shot them.Detective: Melvin. We're here to help you, okay? Melvin: Yes, sir. Detective: Melvin, do you wanna go home? Melvin: Yeah. Detective: Can we let him think about it? Detective: Yeah. You think about it, okay, Melvin?

...

Krause: Remember what I told you, and this whole thing's gonna blow over. All right? You did nothing wrong. Demems: I think I gotta say somethin'. Krauss: Hey. You made...Demens. Something that took one minute should not define your entire life. You understand? You made a mistake. You say what you need to say, and you move on. That's how you get out of this thing. All right? Demens: All right.

...

Newscaster: During the week of rioting in Detroit, three negros were shot to death in a motel room. Police and the Guardsmen had raided the motel, searching for snipers. Later, witnesses to the shootings said the three negros had been lined up and shot in cold blood by the officers. Today, two police officers were arrested and charged with the murders of two of the negros shot in the motel. The officers, one with two years' service, the other with four and with no previous misconduct charges, were ordered held without bail. They pleaded not guilty. Their attorney said the arrests were a shame and a pity.

...

Newscaster: In the Algiers Motel case, both the prosecution and the defense in their opening statements reminded the all-white jury of the racial violence that seared Detroit two summers ago.

...

Defense lawyer: Have you ever had trouble with the law? Lee: I'm not on trial here. Defense lawyer: No need to introduce a new crime, sir. Just the ones already known. Or maybe you can start by telling us, how did the night begin? Party? A few drinks? Lee: Man, why? Why y'all talking about me at all? Man, y'all see a black man in court and assume I'm the one on trial. Man, they killed my friends, man! They beat us! Lined us up and abused us and y'all doing the same thing! There's no justice here, man. Go fuck yourself.

...

Judge: These policemen were owed an obligation. Advising them that they had a right to remain silent, they had a right to counsel, and that anything they said could be used against them in a court of law. I don't think these defendants, because they're police officers, have any right to expect anything more from us, but they have a right under the Constitution not to settle for anything less. I therefore rule the statements inadmissible.

...

Krauss: Wasn't that just a load of bullshit.Melvin: You know as well I do, those kids shouldn't have been killed like that. Krauss: Yeah. It's a shame. Should've complied with a lawful order, and relinquish their weapons. But you're a solid guy though. Really.

...

Judge: Has the jury reached a verdict in this matter, with regard to the charges of murder in the first degree and assault? Head juror: We have, Your Honor. On the assault, not guilty. As to the murder charges, not guilty.

...

Title card: The facts around the murders at the Algiers Motel on July 25th, 1967 were never conclusively established in a criminal proceeding. As a result, portions of this film were constructed and dramatized based on recollections of the participants and available documents.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Come on, does anyone really believe that life on earth is all there is? That life on Earth is literally all the life there has ever been in a universe said to contain millions upon millions of planets.

Now, as a boy I just assumed that this would finally be established in my lifetime. Now I'm considerably less sure.

Instead, like everyone else, I am able only to speculate about it by, among other things, watching films like this.

Still, once we agree there almost certainly are other forms of life "out there", we can get down to the task at hand: imagining a context.

It's alive. But then what? What are the actual consequences of having discovered this extraterrestrial life? In other words, will it be more like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or War of the Worlds?

Although this one is actually more like Alien.

In other words, there's the part where we find extraterrestrial life and then try to comprehend it in terms of the only thing we know: our own self-serving species narrative. But then [of course] we find out that [one way or another] we've got to accommodate ourselves to its narrative. Having no way in which to know for sure [beyond survival] what that is.

Either that or wipe it out.

This one isn't nearly as good as Alien however. And that revolves basically around the fact [my opinion] that the crew here is rather bland. We really don't "get into them". Or really care all that much about them. There are, after all, ensembles in films like this that are better than others. Think, say, the crew from The Abyss.

Miranda [ship quarantine officer in voiceover]: Today the Pilgrim capsule with its valuable Mars soil samples completes its 8 month return from Mars....We've been waiting a long time for this sample, and Rory is placing himself at great risk to secure it.

...

Hugh: Your worry lines are showing.Miranda: Yeah, well, I get paid by the line.

...

Hudh: Pilgrim wasn't just seeing things in Mars' soil. We're looking at a large single cell. Inert. Unmistakenly biological. And, like organisms on Earth it has what appears to be nuleus, cytoplasm.

...

Hugh: I'm gonna try a different atmosphere. Closer to Proterozoic Earth than today's Mars. Less oxygen, more carbon dioxide. And then, when Sho's ready, a growth medium.

...

Hugh [of the organism]: Come on, dance...

...

Hugh: We're looking at the first incontrovertible proof of life beyond Earth.

...

David [to Miranda]: I like the hum up here....

...

Hugh: Hold on to your helmets. The glucose intake is very rapid. The specimen's cells have begun to move together en masses as a unit. They're also sharing electirical activity in what resembles a a growing neural network. Notice I didn't say "brain".

...

Hugh: Here's what's fascinating. Unlike most multicelluar organisms, every cell of Calvin's can perform every somatic function on its own. Every single cell is simultaneously a muscle cell and a nerve cell and a photoreceptive cell.Miranda: So the creature as a whole is, in a very real sense, all muscle, all brain, all eye.

...

Miranda: Notice how it is approaching and not moving away.Hugh: Its curiosity outweighs its fear.

...

Hugh: You can't compare Calvin to anthrax.Rory: I don't want to be around that thing. I'm not qualified to be around that thing.Hugh: I understand. I'm just saying you can't compare Calvin to anthrax.Rory: Stop...stop calling it fucking "Calvin". We don't know what that fucking thing is. You're in there and you're playing around with it like it's your buddy.

...

Miranda: My job is lines of defense. Imagine the worst thing that could happen, and then the worst after that, and then I...I've planned for all of them.Hugh: I understand that. But risks are taken for reasons. Because of Calvin, we're gonna learn so much about life. It's origins, its nature, maybe even its meaning.

Miranda: Earth is the responsibility. Nothing goes down to the planet. It was stipulated. In writing.David: What are you talking about? What was stipulated in writing?

...

David: What other way could it get in?

...

David: Could it survive that?Hugh: We don't know. It's already gone beyond what any living organism should be able to survive.Miranda: If it's between letting it in here or letting it get down there, we let it in here.

...

Hugh: These creatures could have dominated Mars for hundreds of millions of years. But now we know they hibernate for loss of atmosphere. If we deprive it of air, retreat to Tranquility and seal ourselves off...Miranda: And vent the rest of the station...Hugh: Exactly. No life support. No life.

...

Hugh: It's just surviving. Life's very existence requires destruction. Calvin doesn't hate us. But he has to kill us in order to survive.

...

Miranda: I know what I feel is not rational, not scientific. I feel hate. I feel pure fucking hate for that thing.

...

Miranda: David...David, they're not coming to rescue us.David: What?Miranda: Firewall One was the box. And Firewall Two was the lab. And Firewall Three is the station...and if Firewall One or Two fail, they have two choices. They can contain, or they expel. They're pushing us out into deep space. They cannot risk Calvin reaching Earth. That was my protocal. I insisted from the beginning and the committee agreed.

...

David [to Miranda]: I belong up here. i don't want to go back down to eight billion of those motherfuckers.

...

Miranda [into a recording device]: Mars life forms should be considered hostile. Do not underestimate their intelligence and their adaptive capabilities. Now, we did not learn how to restrain or eliminate it, but if this creature ever reaches Earth, use every available means to destroy it...

Cue the sequel?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Way back in my own objectivist years, films like this would have been particularly problematic. I had convinced myself that Marxism was the foundation for the New Man. But, in turn, way back then, the sexual revolution was burgeoning. I had come into contact with the arguments of, among others, Wilhelm Reich. And the arguments of those who embraced, among other things, homosexuality.

So I was pulled and tugged. Folks like Fidel Castro were deemed by my own comrades to be champions of the New Man. But then some of his policies in Cuba began to rub me the wrong way. Besides, could folks like Karl and Vladimir and Mao and Fidel really know what's best in regard to rational or irational sex?

And then the part about intentions. And the roads to Hell that have been paved with the best of them. You can in fact reject things like homosexuality because you honestly and sincerely do believe it is the wrong thing to do. And not just because that is gleaned from the Bible.

In any event, we live in a world where the rigidity rooted in ideological thinking will almost inevitably come into collision with the actual complexity of human interactions. Especially in our post-modern industrial world where, through any number of communications media, we will have access to competing narratives. If nothing else that is what Santa learns from Andres here.

Title card: At the beginning of the Cuban revolutionary process, the government was prepared to remedy any shadow of social scourge staining the achievements of rising socialism. Given these judgments, many religious people, artists and homosexuals were considered the forefathers of communist morality and locked up in camps to be reformed, sometimes imprisoned or taken away from their fundamental freedoms and sentenced to ostracism.

...

Santa: I am Santa Rodriguez, from the people's council.Andres: Yes, yes...and what can I help you with?Santa: Don't you know?Andres: No, not really.Santa: The Forum For Peace.Andres: Another one?Santa: Any problem? Important guests are coming, foreign press, the television.Andres: So?Santa: Nothing. I'll be here.Andres: And me? Santa: You too. Over the next three days you won't go out. I'll be here accompanying you until the event ends.

On the other hand, in Nazi Germany he would already have been sent to the gas chamber.

Andres [offering Santa a drink]: It's bitter. I ran out of sugar. [Santa shakes her head]Andres: I'm not going to poison you.Santa: I don't want.Andres: It's not for you to fall asleep.Santa: I will not sleep.

...

Santa: I like reading. But I have not read anything of yours.Andres: That's because I stopped writing long ago.Santa: And what did you write? And why did you stop writing?Andres: I thought that if you were here it was because you knew.Santa: What?Andres: That I wrote a book that the government didn't like.Santa: Hmm. A dissident book?[Andres doesn't answer. He just stares at her]

...

Santa: Were you imprisoned?Andres: Of course.Santa: How long?Andres: Eight years.Santa: Eight?Andres: Eight years of my life among thieves, rapists, murderers...the scum of this country.

...

Jesus [to Santa]: He was warned many times. And was told with good manners to stop telling lies. We tried to point him in the right direction, but nothing. He didn't want to be helped. It is necessary to look after this man, otherwise he will go there to start telling lies again.

...

Santa: I know the mute isn't your nephew....I'll have to report what I think happened.Andres: Isn't it possible that after your visit I got all worked up and tried to kill myself?Santa: People like you don't kill themselves.Andres: People like me?

...

Andres: This has nothing to do with politics. This is my personal life, so let's leave it there.Santa: If you don't want me to report it, you will have to tell me more.Andres: Yesterday when the mute saw you, he got very angry.Santa: Why?Andres: Because he thought I had told you that he was a queer.

...

Andres [to Santa shaking her hand]: You saved my life. Thanks.

...

Santa [looking at a photograph]: Do you miss them?Andres: I think about them a lot.Santa: About Eddy?Andres: Where did you get that from?Santa: He was your boyfriend, right?Andres: No.Santa: You don't speak to each other anymore?Andres: I don't speak with worms.

...

Andres [to Santa]: There are a lot of talented people in this photograph. Maybe the most talented of my generation.

...

Santa: Without all the mystery tell me what really happened? Why did you become a counterrevolutionary?[Andres just shakes his head]Santa: And this book you wrote, why didn't you try to publish it here?Andres: Of course I tried. What do you think? If this is going to be an interogation I'd prefer to do it at the police station.

...

Santa: You should be removed from the black list.Andres: Well, I should never have been included. That's why all my friends who didn't kill themselves left this country. But as I stayed I am still in the sight of all those mediocre people of the watch. After passing thousands of inspections, they bite my books down to pulp. You didn't let me work. That's what happened to me. You hate artists. The real ones. You can't stand them.Santa: That's not what I was told.Andres: Well you should open your eyes a bit more....Because of people like you...Santa: Like me?Andres: Yes, like you. My life was fucked!

Still, suppose his writings had been in support of, say, fascism?

Santa: Have you ever been with a woman?Andres: No.Santa: Maybe you would like it.Andres: Girl...I have an aversion to the female sexual organ. To me a pussy is like a scab on my armpit.

...

Jesus: Yesterday the district Chief of Police caught Andres' mute stealing from an old faggot from Havana. He thought that if he cooperated his sentence would be reduced and started to write and tell all he knew.Santa: What?Andres: It seems the artist has written a new book. A biographic book of lies about the Revolution.Santa: No, that is not true. It is a lie told by the mute to avoid trouble.

...

Jesus: Where's the book?Andres: What book?Jesus: Don't play the fool. Where's the book?[Andres says nothing]Jesus: Someone told you we were coming. You got ready for us.Andres: Comrade Jesus I have not written to years...not a single word.

...

Jesus: Comrades, this one will not cooperate. Let's make it clear for him that no one messes with the Revolution.

Cue the Cuban national anthem. Then cue the totalitarian eggs.

Andres [on phone]: May I speak to Tirso please. From Andres. Tirso? This is Andres. Listen...I'm ready.

...

Santa: Andres...don't go.Andres: Give me my book.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Sure, women can be superheroes. And women can be spies. And though being drop dead gorgeous is not the only qualification, it certainly appears to be a vital one. On the other hand, aren't most of their male countparts drop dead gorgeous too? Ruggedly handsome as it were.

But this is Hollywood. And the box office there has always revolved around the bold, beautiful ones. On the other hand, this all unfolds during the Cold War. So surely it is more the anomaly.

Or is all of that entirely irrelevant in this particular rendition? After all, it's a spy thriller. And here what counts far more is being or not being drawn into a rousing adventure. Then it's just a matter of probing the extent to which that adventure takes us behind the scenes in exposing the way the spy vs spy world really works. It does. In spades. Instead of terrorists however it's what's left of the Commies. As the Berlin Wall is about to come to crashing down. Here of course everyone seems to have their own rendition of the Deep State. Even in what really amounts to a cartoon character world.

But the tricky part is in being on the cusp of history. The new is not quite here and the old is still very much around. I'm sure however that the same sort of cynical duplicities unfold in the "war on terror" as well.

It's the sort of fantasy that some men imagine feminists crave: a woman tough enough to [almost] be a man. Jane Bond as it were.

News clip of Ronald Reagan: East and West do not mistrust each other because we're armed. We're armed because we mistrust each other. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

...

Title Card: In November 1989, after 28 years, the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. This is not that story.

...

Jimmy: How did you find me? Bakhtin: Maybe you're not as good at this spy shit as you think. Jimmy: It was Satchel, wasn't it? Satchel gave me up. I always thought, if I got tagged, it would be by the best. But you're not the best, are you, Bakhtin? You're the biggest fucking cunt in the KGB. Bakhtin (chuckling): Sticks and stones, Jimmy.

Welcome to spy vs. spy vs. spy vs. spy vs. spy in the cold war.

David: Now, where's that fucking list? Spyglass: I gave the microfilm to Gascoigne last night. David: James didn't show up. Spyglass: I did my part. I gave him the list. You have to get me and my family across. It's not safe for us anymore here. The Russians are onto me. David: No list, no deal. Spyglass: I risked everything. David: No list, no deal. You listen to me, Spyglass. Without that list, why shouldn't I take you outside and shoot you in the fucking head? Spyglass: You are going to kill a Stasi officer? David: One that's about to defect to the West? Yeah.

...

Eric: Percival has gone somewhat native. C: Gone fucking feral. Eric: Berlin is the Wild West. If that bloody wall comes crashing down, we don't want to be under it. If the Russians get that list, we're all buggered sideways.Eric [to Lorraine]: You're Elizabeth Lloyd. A Cambridge-educated lawyer sent by James Gascoigne's family to retrieve the body and effects of their recently deceased son. Your mission is to connect with Percival and do whatever it takes to get that list home. C: And remember, Lorraine, this is highly sensitive. Trust no one.

...

Lorraine [to the camera]: You know those movies where the picture just starts to slow down and melt? Then catch fire? Well, that's Berlin.

...

Lorraine: What do you know about this woman who's been following me since Tempelhof? David: I'd say that you're an attractive woman and you should do the math.

...

Lorraine [to Eric and Emmett and the crowd behind the mirror]: So no, I wasn't just looking for the list in Gascoigne's apartment.

...

Lorraine: Percival was the only one who knew I was going to Gascoigne's apartment. And if I knew he was going to call the police, I would have worn a different outfit. Eric: Different outfit?

...

David: Look, we're all exposed by that list. And saving the world is cool and all that, but my main objective is staying alive. I've been head of Berlin Station for ten years. You've got to know that I'm the only man in this town that can help you get that list. Lorraine: Yes, I've read your file. I've also read your dog file. So let's cut the crap, shall we? This whole hungover, show-up-late, don't-know-which-way-is-up act, I'm not buying it. I trust you about as far as I can throw you. David: "It's a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver." Lorraine: Niccolo Machiavelli. It was on your shelf. David: Oh, my God, I think I fucking love you. Lorriane: That's too bad.

Emmett: Last night, you met a woman. Delphine Lasalle is out of her depth. Given the climate, I'd hate to see an executive order come down the line that falls in her disinterest.Lorraine: Her "disinterest"? What do you mean, her disinterest? Emmett: Don't insult my intelligence, Lorraine. You know exactly what I fucking mean...Hope you get a snapshot.

...

David: He's hardly the most trustworthy person I ever met. Or the fucking brightest. Lorraine: Wait. You said you hadn't met him. David: I lied.

...

Lorraine: Percival's trying to set me up. Delphine: Are you surprised? Lorraine: Not really. These relationships aren't real. They're just a means to an end.Delphine: When you tell the truth, you look different. Your eyes change.Lorraine: Thanks for the warning.

...

Spyglass: I realize I may not be as valuable to some people and...some people may even want me dead, but what choice do I have? Lorraine: You're no good to me dead. And I've never lost a package. Spyglass: I know.

...

David [amidst a sea of umbrellas]: This was never part of the plan. Lorraine: It was part of mine.

...

Lorraine [to Spyglass]: Fasten your seat belt.

...

Lorraine [to Eric]: You sent me into a fucking hornet's nest. I was made by the KGB from the moment my feet touched the ground. Maybe even before. But then you knew that, didn't you? You had your doubts about Percival, and you used me to shake him down.

...

David [to Emmett]: You know, a beautiful Italian girl once said to me, "David, you can't unfuck what's been fucked." Women are always getting in the way of progress, aren't they?

...

Delphine [on the phone]: Don't underestimate me, Percival. David: Oh, Lasalle, listen to me very carefully. You have no idea who you're dealing with. Delphine: You set me up. You... David [sighing]: Come on, now. This is the game. Delphine: I know your secrets, David, and I can play this game better than you think.

...

David [to the camera]: There's only one question left to ask. Who won? And what was the fucking game anyway? To win, first you have to know whose side you're on. In our line of work, that's right up there with black holes or "to be or not to be." You fight the good fight, and then one day you wake up and you realize that all you were was Satan's little helper...Ironic. The news will tell them there will be no more secrets. But you and I, we both know that's not true. The world is run on secrets.

...

Lorraine: You went to the KGB to take me out. You were too fucking scared to do it yourself.David: Too smart, more like.

...

Lorraine: Are you going to lie till the very end?David: Truth and lies. People like us don't know the difference.Lorraine: No, we know the difference, David. We choose to ignore it. Isn't that right, Comrade Satchel? David: So that's how you'll make it work. Lorraine: "It's a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver." David: Well played...

...

C: We're choosing to bury this one, Broughton. Your mission never took place. This conversation never happened. I'm putting you on leave, effective immediately. We'll start the next decade well rested. Lorraine: C? What should I wear...for my tea with the Queen?

...

Lorraine: [to Bremovych as he dies]: Did you really think I was going to give you that list?... Before you die, I want you to get this through that thick, primitive skull. I never worked for you. You worked for me...Every false intel I gave you, a rip in the iron curtain. Every piece of intel you gave me, a bullet in my fucking gun. I want my life back.

He's got issues. Serious psychological issues. But serious psychological issues can, for all practical purposes, mean anything. Also, how do you hold someone with serious psychological issues responsible for what they do? How do you reason with them? How do you separate the part about nature from the part about nurture?

And how serious? As in, for example, dangerous...life threatening?

Then you get to this part: What's it all mean? Only here as one reviewer put it, "it's one of those movies that you need to think about and even by thinking about it you may still not be able to understand it."

Let's just say that, as with so many things relating to complex psychological interactions between and among complex human beings, it's all open to interpretation. And [apparently] it helps to have a familiarity with Ancient Greek mythology. Iphigenia and Agamemnon in particular.

Or, as another reviewer put it:

This primitive drama involves a heart surgeon Steven Murphy and his ophthalmologist wife Anna. That is, the elemental force erupts in the seat of modern science, rationalism, humanity. The professional curers are profoundly afflicted. Their reason is helpless, irrelevant, once the old pagan gods have been stirred to ire.

Only here it is all intertwined in a world in which "the Gods" are ever hovering up there or out there somewhere.

Be sure to click on the special feature: An Impossible Conundrum

And let's not forget that this from the director of The Lobster above.

IMDb

Heart surgery scenes in the film are real. They were filmed during an operation on a real patient who was undergoing quadruple bypass surgery which Colin Farrell attended.

The film's title comes from the ending of the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides.

When Steven is at the school for the parent teacher conference, the principal tells him that Kim wrote a paper on Iphigenia for which she got an A, and that was read aloud to the class. Iphigenia, in Greek mythology, is the daughter of Agamemnon. She who was to be sacrificed for the sins of her father.

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER [2017]Written in part and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos

Steven [speaking to an audience]: A full 40 years have passed since the German cardiologist Andreas Gruentzig performed the first coronary angioplasty, on September 16th, 1977. Today, that first patient is still alive and well. Doctor Gruentzig, however, had an unfortunate accident and met with an untimely end. In short, he is one of those rare cases where we can say, the operation was a success, but unfortunately the doctor didn't make it.

...

Bob: Have you got hair under your arms yet?Martin: Yes.Kim: I just got my first period.

...

Martin [to Kim]: I'd prefer if it was just the two of us. I get nervous around dogs in case they get into a fight with another dog. The idea of separating dogs fighting scares me.

...

Anna [Martin's mother to Steven]: Can I take a closer look at your hands?

...

Anna: Don't worry, he's definitely asleep. There's nothing to be afraid of. In any case, he wants this as much as I do.Steven: I have to go. Anna: I'm sorry if I made you feel awkward, I didn't mean to. But I won't let you leave until you've tried my tart.

...

Martin: My chest, it hurts. My heart. I'm worried. Steven: There's no need for you to be worried. Martin: I'm worried because it's hereditary. Steve: You're too young to be worried. Martin: That's what you said about my father. He didn't smoke. He ate a very healthy diet. He went swimming almost every day. He should have come out of that surgery alive, but he died.

We can see where this is going.

Martin [to Steven]: Okay, you do have more hair than I do but not three times more. Me and my mom thought it would be nice if you came by for dinner tonight. We could watch the rest of the movie. Does eight sound good for you?

...

Martin: Can I tell you a secret? But don't tell her I told you. I think she, I think she likes you. I mean, she's attracted to you. But she says that's not true, but it is, I'm sure. And, to be honest, I think you're perfect for each other. You'd make a great couple. She's got a great body. You've seen it for yourself. She lost weight and she has a really great figure. Steven: Your mother is very beautiful, but the idea that she and I could ever be together is ludicrous. Let me remind you, I'm a married man. And I love my wife very much and my kids, and that we are very happy together.

Too little, too late.

Matthew [a colleague]: I forgot to tell you, I saw that boy yesterday. Your daughter's schoolmate. Steven: Martin?Matthew: Yes, right, Martin. Couldn't remember his name. He was hanging around your car. It looked like he was waiting for you. I tried to say hello but he pretended not to see me. Steven: That's impossible. Can't have been him. Matthew: I could be wrong but it looked a lot like him.

...

Kim: Dad, do you know who I saw today?Steven: Who, darling? Kim: Martin. Steven: Martin who? Kim: Martin, that boy who came over here the other day. The son of your ex-patient. He brought me back from choir practice on his friend's motorcycle. He's really funny. I laughed so hard my ribs hurt.

...

Steven: Robert, do you have any idea what time it is? Get up and get dressed. Bob: I can't get up. Steven: You have 10 minutes to get washed, dressed and eat your breakfast. I'm not going to drive you to school and neither is your mother. Bob: I can't get up. Steven: Bob, get up and get dressed and stop messing around. Bob: Dad. My legs. They're numb. I can't move them. I can't stand up.

...

Martin [whispering in Steven's ear]: Come to the cafeteria upstairs. Come whenever you can. Steven: I don't think I'll have time today, as you might imagine. We'll talk some other time. Martin: No, today, to the cafeteria. Just for 10 minutes, don't stand me up like the last time.

...

Martin: I won't keep you much longer, even though you have been devoting less and less time to me lately. I wanted to say one more thing, I'm really sorry about Bob. Steven: It's nothing serious. Martin: No, it is. That critical moment we both knew would come some day? Here it is. That time is now. You know what I mean. Steven: No, I don't. Listen, Martin, I don't have time for this. Martin: Okay, I'm gonna explain this very quickly so that I don't hold you up. Yes, it's exactly what you think. Just like you killed a member of my family, now you've gotta kill a member of your family to balance things out, understand? I can't tell you who to kill, of course. That's for you to decide, but if you don't do it, they will all get sick and die. Bob will die, Kim will die, your wife will die. They will all get sick and die. One, paralysis of the limbs. Two, refusal of food to the point of starvation. Three, bleeding from the eyes, four, death. One, two, three, four. Don't worry, you won't get sick. You just gotta stay calm, that's all. There, I said it, as quickly as I could. I hope I haven't kept you too long. One more thing. I'll be very quick. You only have a few days to decide who to kill. Once stage three kicks in...You remember what stage three is? It's bleeding from the eyes, that's stage three. Once the bleeding happens, it's only a matter of hours before they die. Okay, there, I have nothing more to say. Unless you've, unless you've any questions?

...

Steven: Anna, if Bob was near-sighted, or had a cataract or glaucoma then your opinion really would be valuable. But, thankfully, Bob's eyesight is perfect. And I can honestly say that if he ever needed glasses you'd be the first person I'd consult. But right now the boy can't eat and he's paralyzed in both legs, so, I'm sorry, I'm not remotely interested in your medical opinion.

...

Steven: I'll tell you a secret, something I've never told you before. Then you'll tell me one. And whoever tells the best secret wins, okay? When I was your age I'd only just started masturbating. And I'd only just started ejaculating. Only a little, barely a drop. I was worried that I had some kind of a problem because at school I'd heard all sorts of stories. Then one day, when my father had had a lot to drink and my brothers were out and he was sleeping in the bedroom, I crept inside, put my hand on his penis and started stroking it until he ejaculated. The sheets were covered in sperm. I got scared and ran out. I've never told anyone that before. Now it's your turn to tell me a secret.

...

Steven: Bob, if all this is just an act, you should know that if you tell me now, I won't punish you. And neither will your mother. We won't be angry with you either. Bob: It's not an act. Steven: But if it is an act and you don't stop this stupid joke right now, your punishment won't just be no TV for two months. I will take my electric razor and I will shave your head and make you eat your hair. I mean it, I will literally make you eat your hair. I'm not kidding. Bob: It's not an act.

...

Steven [pounding on the door]: I know you're in there! Open the door or I will smash it down! Martin! Open the door or I will smash it down and I will fuck you and your mother just the way you wanted! If anything happens to my kids or my wife, you'll die in prison! Do you know that? You'll die in prison!

...

Anna: Had you been drinking when you operated on his father? Steven: Only a little. That had nothing to do with the outcome. A surgeon never kills a patient. An anesthesiologist can kill a patient but a surgeon never can.

...

Kim: Don't be scared, Mom. Don't get hysterical. It's not that tragic. Sometimes your body hurts from not moving and you can't sleep. That's all. The important thing is to make sure that everything you need is within reach. That's all. You'll see. You won't be able to move either. But you'll get used to it.

...

Anna: If my husband made a mistake, if out of negligence or, I don't know what, he caused this tragic thing to happen, I don't understand why I should have to pay the price. Why my children should have to pay the price.Martin: You know, not long after my dad died, someone told me that I eat spaghetti the exact same way he did. They said what an extraordinary impression this fact had made on them. Look at the boy, look how he eats spaghetti. Exactly the same way his father did. He sticks his fork in. He twirls it around, around, around, around, around. Then he sticks it in his mouth. At that time, I thought I was the only one who ate spaghetti that way. Me and my dad. Later, of course, I found out that everyone eats spaghetti the exact same way. Exact same way, exact same way. This made me very upset. Very upset. Maybe even, um, more upset than when they told me he was dead. My dad. I don't know if what is happening is fair, but it's the only thing I can think of that's close to justice.

...

Anna [giving him a hand job]: Had Steven been drinking? Matthew: Yes. Anna: Can it be considered his mistake? Matthew: Yes. It wasn't mine, that's for sure. You know an anesthesiologist is never to blame for the bad outcome of an operation. The surgeon is always responsible.

...

Steven: This meat is delicious. You were right, after all. The children are much better here. I was even thinking I might take them to the beach house, for a few days. A little fresh air and a change of scenery might do us all good. Do you know what I've been craving? Mashed potato. Why don't you make some tomorrow?Anna: You have beautiful hands. I never noticed before. Everyone's been telling me lately what beautiful hands you have and now I can see for myself, nice and clean. But so what if they're beautiful? They're lifeless. Sometimes Steven, you're just an incompetent man who goes on and on saying stupid things like, "Let's do a scan. Let's do an ultrasound. Let's wear brown socks. Let's make mashed potatoes. Let's go to the beach house."Steven: Excuse me?Anna: Our two children are dying in the other room, but yes, I can make you mashed potatoes tomorrow.Steven: Please don't talk to me that way.Anna: If you don't like it, why don't you go and live with Martin's mother? I'll bet she'll talk to you better.Steven: You wanted the kids to come home and they came home. What else you want me to do?Anna: Something to put an end to all of this. That's what I want. Can you do that? You do realize Steven, we're in this situation because of you.Steven: So what do you suggest? Tell me. Oh wait, I know. I've got it. There's a way we can put a stop to all of this. All we need to do is find the tooth of a baby crocodile, the blood of a pigeon and the pubes of a virgin. And then we just have to burn them all before sunset. Let me see, do we have any spare teeth lying around? Let me see, do we have any spare teeth lying around? Teeth, pubes? Nope, nothin' here. There's nothing in here either. Let me see, nothing here. Pubes, teeth? Nothing in this box either. Where are they? I'm sure they were here earlier, I put them here myself. Who's been moving things around? It's unbelievable. I don't suppose you've got any pubes I can have, by any chance? Oh, I forgot, you don't have any left. We don't have any of the things we need.

...

Steven [to Anna motioning to Martin, beaten up and tied to a chair in the basement]: You remember Martin, don't you? He came by for a play-date. I told him the kids were feeling a little unwell and he'll have to stay here until they get better.

...

Steven: Do you think your mother is proud of you, Martin? Do you think she is happy that her beloved son is a murderer?

...

Martin: Don't you understand that you're wasting time? And you don't have much time left. Steven: I said stop talking. Martin: Steven, it's gonna be better once it's done. Start over, clean slate. Don't you get it? Sometimes I think you're naive but you can't be naive. You're a man of science, you can't be an idiot. But, if I'd only just met you, I would seriously question your depth of judgment.[Steven punches him in the face]Martin: I just want, want to show you an example, that's all. Just one little example to show you what I mean.

...

Steven [pointing a rifle at Martin]: Now, Martin, you'll know what it's like to die. What it's like when your head cracks open and your brains blow out. Anna: Don't shoot him. Martin: And then? Shoot me, then what? Answer. Steven: I'll bury you in the yard! And you'll rot, that's what. Martin: You won't be able to explain it. You won't understand how it could have happened. You'll say, "But I only killed one person. How come four people are dead? I only shot one." So if you're gonna dig a hole in the yard, better make it a big one.

Now things really get surreal. Cue Euripides.

Kim: Bob, something terrible happened yesterday. I lost the MP player that Martin gave me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've lost two MP players in the last 10 days. So I'd like to ask you a favor. Can I have your MP player when you're dead?

...

School principal: The boy's very good at math and physics. Kim, on the other hand, apart from her natural aptitude for music, is very good at literature and history, areas in which Bob lags behind. She wrote a brilliant essay on the tragedy of Iphigenia which she read out in class. She received an A plus.Steven: What about their behavior in class? Principal: They're both a little restless, I'd say. Equally so. I mean, I've had the occasional complaint from their teachers about some minor misdemeanors but they've never been rude to any of the staff. In any case, if they had ever acted out, we would have told you about it. Steven: Do you especially like one of them more than the other? If you had to choose between them, which would say is the best? Principal: That's a difficult question. I'm not sure I can give you an answer. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you.

...

Martin: Anna, if you're gonna do something, you'd better be fast. The boy is about to die.

...

Anna [to Steven]: I believe the most logical thing, no matter how harsh this may sound, is to kill a child. Because we can have another child. I still can and you can. And if you can't, we can try IVF, but I'm sure we can.

...

Kim [to her parents]: I'm sorry for what I did tonight. I don't know what I was thinking. I was only thinking about myself and no one else. That was wrong of me. I was frightened. I shouldn't have been. Let me be the one who atones for your sins, Dad. Kill me right here in front of your eyes so that you can be sure that I die, in case some fate spares me at the last moment. Kill me right here in front of you and leave me with the ultimate joy of saving my own mother and beloved brother from certain death. Mom, tell him. Dad, please. I would do anything for you. I would even die for you and here's my chance to prove it.

...

Anna: I let him go. Steven: What are you talking about? Anna: He's not downstairs. I let him go. Steven: Why would you do that? Why did you let him go? Answer me! Anna: Are you a complete idiot? It's not gonna make any difference, Steven. It's not gonna solve anything, we both know that.

...

Kim: Do your legs hurt, Mom, do they feel numb? Does your back hurt, has it started yet?

How many of us are likely to make reference to Mom as "Mother!" What does Mom have to do to warrant an exclamation mark?

Does your mom?

Then the main characters: Mother. Him. Man. Woman. And all the other characters fare no better.

Let's call it, say, a hyper-postmodern production.

In other words, somehow all of this is to be related to whatever you think it might mean as a reflection on the characters that you have become in your own postmodern production. You can't really not understand it however or you miss the point. Whatever that is. Even if you don't isolate yourself from the world in a...sanctuary?

On the other hand, if you have managed to sequester yourself [and I certainly have] what happens when the embodiment of all that is "other" intrudes? Things will either change or they won't. And who really is to say for the better or the worse. As one reviewer put it, "Aronofsky juggles many concepts and critiques about life itself. Motherhood, paranoia, fame, claustrophobia, selfishness, lust, rage, war, peace, religion, gender, history. Mother! is whatever you want it to be and more."

For me though it's mostly about those who have -- for any number of reasons -- created a truly unique world apart from others. A world [call it a sanctuary if you will] that is now threatened by them.

For one thing, they have absolutely no understanding of your world. And now they are putting cracks in it. Great big cracks. Cracks that are quite simply out of this world.

One of these films: "The film received both boos and a standing ovation during its premiere at the Venice Film Festival."

IMDb

I imagine people may ask why the film has such a dark vision. Hubert Selby Jr., the author of Requiem for a Dream (2000), taught me that through staring into the darkest parts of ourselves is where we find the light. "Mother!" begins as a chamber story about a marriage. At the center is a woman who is asked to give and give and give until she can give nothing more. Eventually, the chamber story can't contain the pressure boiling inside. It becomes something else which is hard to explain or describe. I can't fully pinpoint where this film all came from. Some came from the headlines we face every second of every day, some came from the endless buzzing of notifications on our smartphones, some came from living through the blackout of Hurricane Sandy in downtown Manhattan, some came from my heart, some from my gut. Collectively it's a recipe I won't ever be able to reproduce, but I do know this serving is best drunk as a single dose in a shot glass. Knock it back. Salute!"

Jennifer Lawrence met with Darren Aronofsky to hear his ideas before there was a script. After she read the script, she said she was so shaken by it that she threw it across the room.

Michelle Pfeiffer admitted not understanding the script the first time she read it, describing it as "esoteric." However, the actress committed to the project after becoming excited by the character she would be playing.

Jennifer Lawrence got so much into her character that during the climactic scenes, she started hyperventilating and even cracked a rib.

Him: Perfect. You didn’t need to do all of this. Mother: I wanted to. You’ve been working so hard. Him [sarcastically]: Yeah, right.

...

Mother: And what brings you to us? Man: Well they told me I could find a room here. Him: He thought we were a bed and breakfast.

...

Mother: We don’t know him. Him: He’s a doctor. Mother: He’s a stranger. We’re just going to let him sleep in our house? Him: You want me to ask him to leave?

...

Him [holding a crystal]: When I was younger, I lost everything in a fire. Man: I’m sorry. Him: It’s hard to imagine what that means. Losing everything. Your memories, your work, even your dirty toothbrush. I didn’t even know if I could ever create again. Until, I found this in the ashes. Isn’t that remarkable? It gave me the strength to start again. And then I met her...

...

Mother: What happened last night? Him: I couldn’t sleep. I got so excited. Mother: From what? Him: His stories. I love the man’s mind. It is so inspiring speaking with someone who really appreciates the work.Mother: I love your work.Him [matter of factly]: Of course you do, I know that.

...

Woman: You have kids? Him: Not yet. But we want them. Mother [looking at Him with shock? alarm?]: Really? Woman: Well what are you waiting for? Why not finish breakfast and get to it... Mother: Well, I want to finish the house. And he’s working on a new piece...

...

Woman: Why don’t you want kids? Mother: Excuse me? Woman: I saw how you reacted earlier. I know what’s it’s like when you’re just starting out and you think you have all the time in the world. But you know, you’re not going to be so young forever. Have kids. Then you’ll be creating something together, that’s what keeps a marriage going. This...the house...is all just setting.[she note Mother's reaction]Woman: Oh, you do want them...Is it him?

...

Woman [holding up a pair of Mother's boring panties]: So that’s the problem. Mother: What? Woman: You’re going to have to try harder than that. Believe me, when they get older, you gotta keep it interesting. Mother: He’s not that old. Woman: How’s it going in that department? Mother: I don’t feel comfortable talking about that stuff. Woman: I’m just trying to help. I mean, look at you. If he’s not all over you, it’s either because of his age, or... Mother: Or what?Woman: You know what, forget it. It’s none of my business. Mother: No. It’s okay. Say what you were going to say. Woman: No, seriously. Obviously he still loves you.

...

Mother: He has one of those pictures of you in his luggage. Him: What were you doing in their luggage? Mother: That’s not the point. He didn’t just “stumble” on us. He’s a crazy fan. Him: I know. Mother: Excuse me? Him: That’s what he told me on our walk. He’s dying. That’s why he came here. He wanted to meet me before he’s gone.

...

Son: Oh, hey. Hey, who’re you? Mother: Who are you? What are you doing here? Son: What are any of us doing here, right? Where’s my mother?

...

Mother: What happened at the hospital? Him: I was holding the boy’s hand when he died.

Cue the invasion. Dozens of them. Hordes of them!

Him [with his hand on the Man's shoulder]: How can one begin to understand your pain? The sacrifice of a parent? All those years of worry. Years in days. Days in hours. Hours in seconds. But in each second, an infinite amount of love. And now, suddenly it seems there is nothing to love. Just a vast and silent darkness. But fear not, from inside it, there’s a voice crying out to be heard, loud and strong. Just listen...Do you hear that? Do you hear that? That is the sound of life, that is the sound of humanity. That is your son’s voice. His cry of love. His love for you.

...

Mother: I can’t imagine how...Woman: No. You can’t imagine what it feels like if you don’t have a child. You give and you give and you give and it’s just never enough. Mother: I understand. Woman [lashing out]: Do you? Why don’t you at least put on something decent?

Mother: Get OUT! GET OUT! All of you!! Him: What happened? Mother: THEY WON'T LISTEN!!!

...

Him: You don’t need to...Mother: Do what? Clean up their mess? Him: We did a good thing. They needed a place to celebrate life. They needed us tonight. Mother: What about what I needed? A boy died here today! I mopped up his blood. And you abandoned me. Him: No. I didn’t abandon you. They just lost a son, they lost two sons. I was helping them. This is not about us, it’s about them. Mother: No, it’s not about them, it’s about you. It’s always about you and your work. You think that’s gonna help you write? Nothing does. I re-built this entire house, wall to wall, you haven’t written a word!!Him: All I’m trying to do is bring life into this house. Open the door to new people. New ideas. You think you can’t breathe? I’m the one who’s suffocating here. While you pretend that nothing is wrong. “Everything will be all right.” “Everything will be good.” “You’ll be fine.” You know what? Life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Mother: You’re right. Mine certainly didn’t. Him: Excuse me?Mother: You talk about wanting kids, but you can’t even fuck me.

...

Mother: What are you doing? Him: I’m writing. Last night. Those people, their pain. Their love behind the pain. And then, you. Us. And now [pointing to her belly]...Life. It’s come to me. I know what to say, I have to find the words. That’s all. Mother: Amazing. I don’t want to interrupt, I’ll just get started on the apocalypse.

Again: Cue the hordes!! Only this it seems like thousands of them.

Mother: What are you doing? Who are they?Him: I don't know.Mother: What do they want?Him: I don't know. They've come here to see me!

...

Him: They love my book. They understand all of it, but it effects every one in a different way. It is remarkable. Come, they want to meet you. Come. Mother: No. I don’t want to. I don’t want to. Come inside. Him: But they’ve come from so far... Mother: Look at me! I’m about to have our baby. Why is that not enough for you?

...

Mother: Hey! Sir! Drunkard: I’m just going to lay down for a bit. I don’t feel so good. Mother: No, no. You cannot lie down here. Drunkard: Why? Are you staying in here? Mother: I live here. This is my house. Drunkard [laughing to himself]: "My house". "My house". The poet says it’s everyone’s house!

...

Mother: They’re ruining everything. Him: Those are just things. They can be replaced. Don’t worry.

...

Penitent: It’s him, the poet! He hasn’t forsaken us after all! We need money! We need to eat! Please!

...

Mother: What are they doing? Him: They’re just waiting. Mother: Waiting for what? Him: I don’t know.

Mother: Are they leaving? Him: What? No, they just want to see him. Mother: No. Make. Them. Go! Him: I can’t. Mother [pleading]: Yes you can. They adore you. They would listen to you. [he doesn’t respond] Mother: Why won’t you!? Him [finally being honest]: I don’t want them to go.

Mother [hysterically]: Where’s my baby?! Zealot: He’s not dead. A voice still cries out to be heard, loud and strong. Listen... Can you hear that? [she pushes past him. On the altar, lies the remnants of her child. Meat has been picked from the child’s bones]Zealot: Do you hear that? That’s the sound of life, the sound of humanity. His cry of love. His love for you.

...

Mother: They killed my baby. You killed him. You killed him. Him: I am so sorry. They just wanted to see him, they just wanted to touch him, and then they... It’s horrible. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...But we can’t let him die for nothing. We can’t. Maybe what happened can change everything, everyone. Mother: What are you talking about? Him: We have to find a way to forgive them. Mother: They butchered our son! Him: I know. I know.Mother: You're insane!Him: Listen to them. They are so sorry. They are truly sorry. Please have faith in me. We need to forgive them. We need to forgive them. We need to forgive them.

...

Mother [at everyone]: Murderers! [to Him] Murderer! It’s time to get the fuck out of my house!!!

...

Him: I love you.Mother: You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you. I gave you everything! You gave it all away.

Cue Hell itself.

Mother: What are you?Him: Me? I am I. You? You were home.Mother: Where are you taking me?Him: The beginning. It won't hurt much longer.Mother: What hurts me the most is that I wasn't enough.Him: It's not your fault. Nothing is ever enough. I couldn't create if it was. And I have to. That's what I do. That's what I am. And now I must try it all again.Mother: No. Just let me go.Him: I need one last thing.Mother: I have nothing left to give.Him: Your love. It's still there, isn't it?Mother: Go ahead. Take it.

...

New Woman: Baby?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Now at the age of 87, Alejandro Jodorowsky has written and directed another fim. I have already included on this thread such titles as The Dance Of Reality,Sante Sangre, The Holy Mountain, and El Topo.

On the other hand, "[t]his is the second of the five memoirs Alejandro Jodorowsky plans to shoot, the first one being The Dance of Reality.

More to come apparently.

His films are often described as both "dramas" and "fantacies". In other words, you are able to recognize the world that we live in...but sometimes just barely. It is as though he is relating to us the life that he has lived from a first person subjunctive point of view. Here he wants to connect the dots between the here and the now [whatever that means to him] and the there and the then [however he remembers it]. How the past configures the present, and how the present reconfigures the past into a new rendition of the present.

So, what seems surreally true more or less than what is truly surreal.

He returns to his youth. He tries to convey the experiences, the forces, the epiphanies that allowed him to "free himself from the limits of his youth." And, really, how many of us can say the same? It is as though some are destined to be artists, but not all are destined to be bold enough to break the molds [and the barriers] that "society" and "family" impose on each new generation.

Still, you are never quite sure if this film is an homage to that, or a mockery of that. You in this case meaning me.

All of us are forced to create a narrative between the world around us and, in the course of actually living our lives out in one particular world, the thoughts and the feelings that come into existence "in our heads". How to make sense of it? How to attach "meaning" to it. And what to do when we bump into others who do not seem to have made the same connections.

Father [to Alejandro as a boy]: Look, these lousy folk look harmless, but they're thieves. Point if you see them stealing.

...

Father: Garcia Lorca! He speaks of love, but he is a faggot! Like all poets, all painters, all dancers, all actors! If you read this filth, you'll end up like him!

...

Drunk [to Alejandro as a boy] : Don't worry, young man. A naked virgin will illuminate your path with a blazing butterfly.

...

Alejandro [to himself as a boy]: That drunk, whom wine had made a prohet, pulled me out of the abyss with a single sentence.

Cue the typewriter

Alejandro: Poetry, you shall illuminate my life like a blazing butterfly!

...

Father [to Alejandro after an earthquake]: See, it was nothing. Let's count the money.

...

Alejandro: Family! Fucking family! You shits!!

...

Ricardo: Alejandro, your rebellious act was worthy of a poet. Without saying a word, you said it all....I'll take you to the Cerecada sisters.

...

Ricardo: This is where my friends live, Carmen abbd Veronica Cerecada. I've never seen their parents. I don't know if they're orphans or millionaires. All I know is that they love art above all things.

...

Ricardo: I want to live without a mask. But I'm Naum's son. I have to be an architect, get married, have two children.Carmen: Dare, Ricardo!Ricardo: He'd die. The scandal would kill him.Carmen: Take off your mask. Be bold. Be bold!

...

Alejandro [aloud to himself after Ricardo kisses him]: I felt noithing! I'm not a faggot! I told you so, Papa!

What to make of that?

Carmen [to all of the artists]: The miracle we call chance has sent us this poet. Alejandro Jodorowsky. Let us welcome him!

...

Sella [the poetess]: You people are nothing!

...

Alejandro: Yes, I'm following you.Stella: Open your eyes.Alejandro: They say you write poems. I do too. May I read yours?Stella: You're only interested in my poems? Not my ass or breasts?

...

Stella: Wait. Tell me, what is poetry to you?Alejandro: It's the luminius excrement of a toad that's swallowed a firefly.Stella: My dear little friend, I'm too big a firefly for your mouth.Alejandro: I don't need to swallow you. You are my soul.

Get it? No? Fortunately, that doesn't matter.

Stella: Shit! My kingdom for a beer!

...

Alejandro [looking up at Ricardo hanging from a streetlight]: Ricardo!Stella: What? Did you know him?Alejandro: He was my cousin.Stella: What a thought, to commit suicide in front of the University of Chile!Alejandro: He didn't want to become an archetect.Stella: "Like a bird, like the enthralls of a tree, you reached the end of a quest, defeated and doomed for having silenced the soul you concealed."

...

Stella: Alejandro, there is nothing you can do for him.Alejandro: But there is something I need to do for myself. Stella, I don't know who I am anymore. I've turned into a mirror that only reflects your image. I no longer want to live in the chaos you create!

...

Alejandro: I beg you, let me recover. Give me a few days of solitude.Stella [backing away from him]: We'll meet at Cafe Iris at midnight sharp in forty days time.

...

Veronica: Eat, Alejandro. You've been shut away for forty days, making puppets without setting foot outside. Why?Alejandro: I feel empty. I sculpt faces because I've lost mine. I haven't found myself. Perhaps tonight at midnight I'll become the mirror of that awful woman again.

...

Alejandro [to his collection of humanity]: If daily life seems like hell, if it can be summed up in two words, "permanent impermanence" we must listen to the Bible: "There is nothing better for man than to eat, drink, and have his soul rejoice!"

You know, given that daily life really can seem like a hell.

Enrique "If life is nothing but madness..."Alejandro: Who is the poet behind a mirror?"Veronica: He's Enrique Lihn.Enrique: "Such is my poetry: sighted darkness/I am but my own absence/behind a broken mirror"

...

Alejandro: Even poetry written on the floor. This wonderful work will all be lost.Enrique: Everything will vanish. Our souls will disappear. It doesn't matter. Dreams vanish too, and little by little we dissolve. Poetry, like the shadow of a flying eagle, leaves no trace on land. A poem reaches perfection when it burns.

...

Alejandro [to himself as a young man]: I am the man you will be. You are the man I was. You devoted yourself to poetry and I do not regret it.Alejandro [as a yound man]: What will I achieve?Alejandro: You will learn to die in happiness.Alejandro [as a young man]: I am afraid to die.Alejandro: You're afraid of living.Alejandro [as a young man]: I'm afraid of disappointing others.Alejandro: You are not guilty of living as you do. You'd be guilty if you lived as others want you to live.Alejandro [as a young man]: What is the meaning of life?Alejandro: Life! The brain asks questions, the heart gives the answers. Life does not have meaning, you must live it. Live! Live! Live!

Meaning what exactly? Though point taken. But then just when you thought things could not possibly become more surreal....

Alejandro: Wake up poet.Enrique: Better to be asleep than awake. Better to be dead. Better to not have been born.Alejandro: Enough, Enrique! You're destroying yourself. We won't let you kill yourself.Enrique: Nothingness is everything. You're wasting your time.Alejandro: Life is everything. It isn't you suffering. It's the image you've made of yourself. You're a poet! Perceive reality differently.

...

Father: The house burned down. Your home. The furniture, clothes, beds!Alejandro: My writing and books?Father: Your writing and books? I don't give a fuck about them! How can you ask such a stupid thing? The money burned!

...

Alejandro [staring at himself in a mirror]: And you? Who are you? What is the purpose of your existence? Why are you alive?His reflection: I have never been alive. I was born dead. Another dead man among the dead.Alejandro [after walking away from the mirror]: Another dead man among the dead. I will grow old, die, rot. Nothingness will swallow my memory, my words, my consciousness. Everything that is mine in the dark depths of oblivion. These streets will disappear too. My friends, the city, the planet! The Moon, the Sun, the stars! The entire universe. Damned reflection. What do I do with this anguish you've injected in me?!

...

Alejandro [to himself as a young man...and to the camera]: Old age is not a humliiation. You detach yourself from everything. From sex, from fortune, from fame. You detach yourself from yourself. You turn into a butterfly...a radiant butterfly. A being of pure light.

Trust me: Not all of us.

Nicanor: As you can see, your favorite poet is now a maths teacher in this engineering school. What brings you here?Alejandro: Well, since I've distanced myself from my father, I'd like your advice. I want to devote my body and soul to poetry.Nicanor: Are you mad?! Nobody pays for books any more, even less for poetry. What you have to do is study, get a degree, and work as a teacher, like me. Don't burn your bridges.Alejandro: A butterfly mustn't turn into flies. Nor poets into teachers.Nicanor: I'm a teacher and have turned into a fly. The world is what it is, you won't change it.Alejandro: I can't change the world, but I can start to change it.Nicanor: Really? How?Alejandro: By changing myself. I will burn my bridges, Mr. Parra. Adios.

Cue Ibanez and the fascists. Later, Allende and Pinochet.

Father: Not saying goodbye to your father? Your friend Veronica told me you were leaving Chile with empty pockets, and that I need to help you. But I cannot and will not finance such a stupid decision. You don't speak a word of French! What will you live on? Your little poems? Come back to the shop. I need a helper.Aleandro: What you need is a slave! You're not a father! You never hugged me or spoke affectionaitely.Father: Men don't touch each other, or say sweet things to one another.Alejandro: When I vomited bitter tears, begging for a bit of affection, a bit of attention, you let me cry for hours.Father: I comfort no one. You've become such a faggot!Aleandro [enraged]: I'm not a faggot. I'm not like you. I have the heart of a poet. A heart capable of loving the entire world!Father: Listen to me. You'll starve in the gutter!Alejandro: You'll die surrounded by knickers and stockings stained with the blood of the workers!

...

Father: I didn't know. I always had good intentions. Don't leave without shaking my hand.[Alejandro shakes his hand...then Alexandro of the present intervenes]Alejandro [beckoning them to hug]: No. Like this.[He looks to Alejandro as a young man]Alejandro: You went to France and never saw him again. When he died you didn't shed a tear. But beneath your indifference your heart was saying, "Father, by giving me nothing, you gave me everything. By not loving me you taught me love is absolutely necessary. By denying God you taught me to value life.Alejandro [of the present]: I forgive you father. You gave him the strength to bear this world, in which poetry no longer exists. Recognize your father. Remove his mask.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Of course back then the law was particularly problematic. Especially when confronting savage brutes who see the world as entirely revolving around their own base [bestial] needs. No sense in trying to reason with them, much less persuading them to reason with you.

Not only that but "idiots" abound here. And, if you happen not to be an idiot yourself, then one way or another you have to accomodate yourself to them.

And then the part where you are on either one side or the the other of what back then they called "manifest destiny". Destiny, however, that is manifested more or less in a might makes right world.

Ultimately, this is a film about "characters". You'll react to them only insofar are you construe yourself to be a character too. Then you can measure them against that. While making an adjustment to the fact that the world they live in is one that you don't really have a clue regarding. On the other hand, characters such as these may well be reflections of what those who create them imagine characters like them must have been like. But they themselves often get this from the characters they have observd up on one or another silver screen. Or maybe it's just an exercise in making a point about the "human condition". Back then and here and now.

One that is rather grim.

Anyway, you find yourself wondering from time to time if it was even possible that this might have been based on a true story.

As for this...

At Fantastic Fest, S. Craig Zahler said that he wanted much of the film's mysticism to remain ambiguous and debatable.

...I missed it altogether.

IMDb

After reading S. Craig Zahler's second novel called "Wraiths of the Broken Land", Kurt Russell stated that "Zahler's a fabulous story teller whose style catapults his reader into the turn of the century West with a ferocious sense of authenticity". The phrase is written on the back cover of the book.

Buddy: There are 16 major veins in the neck and you have to cut through 'em all. Purvis: There ain't 16. Buddy: My uncle had an acquaintance with a man who used to be a doctor and that's what he said.

...

Purvis: Is this some kind of sign? "Keep Out" or something. Buddy [holding up his gun]: We got permission.

...

Buddy: That's where we're goin'. Straight through this place and deeper in. Purvis: Maybe we shouldn't be going some place that looks like a burial ground. Buddy: To a bunch of godless savages. Ain't no concern of the civilized man.

...

Franklin [the sheriff to Samantha]: Do what you can for him. Very likely he's gonna get hanged but it'd be nice if the families of the people he bushwhacked could come to town and watch him go purple on the rope. Chicory: Well, that should inspire her.

...

Wallington: Sheriff Hunt, what do you intend to do about my horses? Franklin: They are not my priority right now.Wallington: Those are my finest...Franklin: Quiet! Ask about horses again I'll slap you red!

...

Franklin: You know who did this? The Professor: Only one group that hunts with these. Franklin: Who? The Professor: They don't have a name. Franklin: What kind of tribe doesn't have a name? The Professor: One that doesn't have a language. Cave dwellers.

...

Arthur: You're afraid of your own kind? The Professor: They're not my kind. They are a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals who rape and eat their own mothers.Arthur: Well, what are they? The Professor: Troglodytes.

...

Franklin: Why would they tear that stable boy up leave him but take the others away? The Professor: They don't eat Negroes.

...

Gizzard: Does anybody know how to spell "Troglodytes"?...For the telegram.

...

Arthur: You'll hear it soon.

...

Chicory: You watch how you speak to the law the sheriff especially. You aren't the captain. Brooder: No. But I'm the most intelligent man here and I intend to keep us alive. Chicory: You're the most intelligent here. Is that a fact? Brooder: It is. Sheriff Hunt has a wife, so does Mr. O'Dwyer. And you're a widower. Chicory: Yeah, what does that got to do with anything? Brooder: Smart men don't get married.

...

Chicory: You know, sheriff, I know the world's supposed to be round, but I'm not so sure about this part.

...

Chicory: He's all the way empty. Franklin: You think that infection could turn to gangrene? Chocory: It could go either way. Franklin: Have you ever performed an amputation? Chocory: Yeah. In the war. But even done correctly chances aren't good. Franklin: That seems like an especially miserable way to spend your final days.Chicory: The worst.

...

Brooder: We need to pack up and make a cold camp somewhere else some place defensible. If you want to question my morals, do it later.Franklin: There aren't any to question.

...

Arthur: What transpired? Franklin: Mr. Brooder just educated two Mexicans on the meaning of manifest destiny.Arthur: They deserve it?Franklin: I don't know.

...

Chickory: What time is it? Franklin: It's about nine, but it feels like next week.

...

Brooder: I don't understand how they got all the horses. Saucy would never allow some greaser on her back. Franklin: You trained her in bigotry?

...

Arthur: To hell with your authority and the way you've been doin' things! You shouldn't have shot that drifter back in Bright Hope and got my wife involved. And Brooder shouldn't have executed them Mexicans and made it all worse. Franklin: I can't honestly say I know which way it would've gone with the Mexicans or if I had left that drifter go. But this is where we are.

...

Chicory [to Arthur]: The tincture will help but this is gonna penetrate.

...

Chicory: How many of them did you kill? They were all, what do you call 'em, warriors and braves? Brooder: Mostly. Chicory: Oh, some weren't braves? Brooder: Some weren't men. Chicory: Oh. Brooder: An Indian woman is still an Indian. She knows how to use a bow and a spear, and so do her children. Chicory: Why do you hate them so much? Brooder: You should ask my mother and my sisters. Chicory: I never met 'em. Brooder: That's correct. You never did.

...

Brooder [to Franklin]: Tie this off. I need the repeater. Supply me with dynamite and don't return until I've used it. I am far too vain to ever live as a cripple.

...

Brooder [to Chicory]: And the answer to your question is 116.

...

Franklin: Is Nick with you? Samantha: He's not well. Franklin: And the drifter? Samantha: They ate him.

...

Nick: You were right about that drifter. He killed a lot of people. He butchered them in their sleep and he robbed them. His name was Purvis. And then he desecrated the burial ground of these things. These Indians or whatever they are. He raved about it all in the end. Franklin: Thanks for telling me. Nick: That man deserved to die.

...

Samantha [to Franklin abd Chicory]: This is why frontier life is so difficult. Not because of the Indians or the elements but because of the idiots!

...

Arthur [looking up to the Heavens]: You watchin'? You seein' all this? This is what I've prayed my whole life for. For help right now.

...

Franklin [looking up at the cannibals]: Drink it. It's got to taste better than people.

Another botched bank job. Only these aren't your run of the mill criminals. One in particular. Among other things, he is "intellectually disabled". And now that his brother has got him involved in a caper that could land him in Rikers Island for a very long time, this brother will do practically [and impractically] anything to spring him.

Like most movies of this sort, almost everything comes down to how we respond to the "bad guy". Why is he doing what he does? How desperate is he? What are his options? Can we understand how, had things been different in our own lives, we might feel compelled to do the same?

And even if we not able to empathize with him, do we at least find ourselves capable of sympathizing with him? Is he basically a decent guy caught up in a set of circumstances only more or less in his control?

On the other hand [for some], it isn't really even close. These guys are born losers, plain and simple. Throw the book at them. Lock them up and toss the key.

And here the circumstanes are anything but in his control. He stumbles about in a subterranean hellhole. Hobbling ineptly from one inane clusterfuck to the next. And while part of you is rooting for him, another part is thinking the sonofabitch gets what he deserves.

But then you keep coming back to the part about his brother.

And let me introduce you to Ray. And Crystal.

IMDb

Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie prepared for their roles by working at a car wash in Queens

The film received a six-minute long standing ovation after its screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Good Time is prison slang. It refers to a reduction in a prisoner's sentence for good behavior.

Peter [a shrink]: We're moving into a new section now, what they call sentence interpretation. Do you understand that? You know what interpreting a sentence means? Nick [flatly]: No. Peter: It's just a fancy word for telling what the words mean to you. Nick: Okay. Peter: Okay. And what these are, these are common expressions that people sometimes say. You might hear it out on the street, you might've seen it on TV, uh, maybe a friend, maybe your grandmother. So, I'm going to read you a few of those, okay? Nick: Okay. Peter: All right. Uh, the first one is, "Don't count your chickens before they hatch." What does that mean to you, that expression? "Don't count your chickens before they hatch?" Nick: Don't count your chickens.

Nick is "intellectually challenged".

I'm sorry. It's just that Grandma said that...Connie: I don't wanna hear about Grandma anymore, all right? Fuck Grandma, Nicky. It's just you and me. I'm your friend, all right? I love you, all right?

...

Peter: The judge is gonna ask her about Connie. And if she says to the judge, "I can't talk about that." He's gonna say, "Then go away, I'm not going to help Nick." She needs to keep the judge happy, answer his questions. She can't do that unless you answer her questions first. Nick: I don't like to. I don't want to. Lawyer: The point is, it doesn't matter what you tell me. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what we do in this time together. Nothing that you and I do here is going to get your brother in trouble. Nick: Then why do you keep asking about him? Lawyer: Because, you know what? The thing is, is that I don't think you're as responsible for this as you believe that you are.

...

Nick [on the phone talking to his grandmother in jail]: That money was for us. And he was going to buy me a farm, and we were gonna live in the woods. And I was going to be able to do whatever I wanted, when I wanted, okay? You don't love me, okay? He loves me. Connie loves me!

...

Crystal: What's that in your hair? Connie: This? I found some hair dye in your bathroom. Crystal: You dyed your hair? Connie: Yeah. Just kind of a weirdo. Crystal: I hope that's not the one from the bottom of the cabinet.

...

Ray: What the fuck is going on? Why am I in handcuffs? Connie: You were handcuffed to a stretcher in a hospital. I broke the wrong guy out. That's all I know. Ray: Hospital? Connie: Yeah. There was a cop outside your room. Ray: What? Connie: I fucked up.

...

Connie: You know what? Tonight, it's fucked up as it is. I just think...I think something very important is happening, and it's deeply connected to my purpose. And I think that you are somehow connected to it as well. I mean, do you feel me at all? Or do I just sound like a total faggot? Crystal: No, I feel you. I understand.

...

Ray: I know your situation can't be worse than mine. Everybody goes through shit. I'm the last one to judge. You ever do time before? Connie: Fucking kidding me? Ray: Just asking you a question. Why you gotta be such a fuckin' little prick all the time, man? Connie: Look at you. Look at you. You're drunk as shit, and now you wanna get real with me? Ray: Don't fucking flatter yourself, bro. Huh? I'm not trying to get real with you. You know what? I'm fucking real. Fuck. I'm trying to talk to you, all right? Go fuck yourself, man. You think you're better than me. Connie: I am better than you. Ray: You're an ignorant fuck, bro. No one's better than any next man, all right? You don't know me from Adam. Connie: The second you got here, you went to the booze and you got fucked up. But that's fine.

...

Connie: Look. Losers like you are incapable of taking care of themselves. You're either leeching off mommy or leeching off welfare or living off the government in jail. That's you! Ray: You don't know the first thing about me, bro. Connie: What's to know? What's to know? You serve absolutely no function whatsoever. It's pathetic.

...

Peter [to Nick]: Okay. Listen, I want you to come with me. I'm gonna take you someplace. I just enrolled you in this really terrific class. I'm gonna walk you there right now. You are gonna love it. You know, Nick, I have to tell you, what Connie did. Connie did the right thing. He did the really responsible thing. And the best news is, he's right where he belongs. And you're right where you belong. And I gotta tell you, this place where we are now can be a lot of fun if you let it. You know that, don't you?

See Nick. See Nick cross the room.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

There are so many ways in which to imagine the future. Yet the best ones generally revolve around extrapolating from the manner in which we imagine the present -- taking that into the future. And if the present appears bleak the future can only appear bleaker.

And certainly darker.

And that will almost always revolve in turn around our assessment of the "human condition". And, cinematically, it's not for nothing that this more often than not appears to be very dark indeed.

Dystopia on steroids.

For example, Blade Runner.

Imagine then a sequel...

Say, 30 years into the future. A world in which the original blade runner Rick Deckard has gone missing. And the brand spanking new replicants have had all that much more time to become incorruptible slaves.

[think here the gap between Ash and Bishop]

And you can't help but wonder while watching it if any of this might actually be possible. It's just that the older you are the more likely you won't be around to find out. But, sure, the younger you are the more likely it is you may well be around in 2049. Then you can tally up the parts they got right and the parts they got wrong. My guess: This stuff is more like 2149. And the "memory maker" parts? Probably never.

And then that murky middle ground between being "born" and being "made". What is real and what is an implanted memory? What is "off-world" and what is not?

Of course, who knows, maybe there are already replicants among us.

And then, finally, the inevitable comparisons with the orignial. The first was often described as both "hypnotic and surreal". You were thrust into a world that was all new but not entirely beyond imagining as possible. Why not replicants some day? But whereas you found yourself drawn into the characters in the the first film, the characters in the second are considerably less compelling.

K is no Rick Deckard.

Oh, and let's not forget this: "Dying for the right cause is the most human thing we can do."

And don't listen for Vangelis in the sequel. Whereas in the first, the soundtrack was in and of itself a crucial character in the plot.

IMDb

David Bowie was Denis Villeneuve's first choice for the role of Niander Wallace, but passed away before the start of shooting.

The opening scene in which K confronts Sapper Morton is a near exact remake of a scene written and storyboarded but never filmed for the original Blade Runner.

In order to portray the blind character of Niander Wallace, Jared Leto decided to fit himself with opaque contact lenses that made it impossible for him to see.

Title card: Replicants are bioengineered humans, designed by Tyrell Corporation for use off-world. Their enhanced strength made them ideal slave labor After a series of violent rebellions, their manufacture became prohibited and Tyrell Corp went bankrupt. The collapse of ecosystems in the mid 2020s led to the rise of industrialist Niander Wallace, Whose mastery of synthetic farming averted famine Wallace acquired the remains of Tyrell Corp and created a new line of replicants who obey. Many older model replicants--NEXUS 8s with open-ended lifespans--survived. They are hunted down and "Retired" Those that hunt them still go by the name Blade Runner.

...

Sapper: How does it feel killing your own kind? K: I don't retire my own kind, because we don't run. Only you older models do. Sapper: And you new models are happy just cleaning the shit. Because you have never seen a miracle.

...

Voice: Ready? K: Yessir. Voice: Reset your baseline. K: And blood-black nothingness began to spin A system of cells interlinked within cells, interlinked within cells, interlinked within one stem. And dreadfully distinct against the dark, a tall white fountain played... Voice: Cells. K: Cells.

...

Coco: Looks like an emergency C-section. The cuts are clean, no sign of a struggle. K: He was a combat medic. Maybe he tried to save her and he just couldn't. Coco: He didn't seem like the saving type. K: He went to the trouble of burying her.Joshi: So, where's the kid? You scanned the whole field? Coco: Just dirt and worms, no other bodies. Technician: Maybe he ate it.

...

Joshi: That's not possible. She was a replicant. Pregnant. The world is built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side, there's no wall, you bought a war. Or a slaughter. So, what you saw... didn't happen. K: Yes Madam. Joshi: It is my job to keep order. That's what we do here, we keep order. K: You want it gone? Joshi: Erase everything. K: Even the child? Joshi: All trace. [K doesn't respond]Joshi: You have anything more to say? K: I never retired something that was born, before. Joshi: What's the difference? K: To be born is to have a soul, I guess. Joshi: Are you telling me no? K: I wasn't aware that was an option, Madam. Joshi: Attaboy. Hey. You've getting on fine, without one. K: What's that, Madam? Joshi: A soul.

...

File clerk [at Earth Headquarters]: Everyone remembers where they were at the Blackout. You? K: That was a little before before my time. File clerk: I was at home with my folks, and ten days of darkness. Every machine stopped cold. When the lights came back, we were wiped clean: photos, files, every bit of data... gone.

Luv: I see you're also a customer. Are you satisfied with our product? K: She's very realistic. Thank you.

...

Luv: Was there anything unusual about how you found her? To warrant an official investigation? K: You know how people are about old serial numbers. Everyone just sleeps better when they know where they got to.

...

Niander [as he touches the New Model]: First thought one tends to fear to preserve the clay. It's fascinating. Before we even know what we are, we fear to lose it. Happy Birthday.

...

Niander [more to himself]: Every leap of civilization was built off the back of a disposable work force. We lost our stomach for slaves, unless engineered. But I can only make so many. That barren pasture, empty and salted. Right here. The dead space between the stars. And this, the seed that we must change for heaven? I cannot breed them, so help me, I have tried. We need more replicants than can ever be assembled. Millions, so we can be trillions more. We could storm Eden and retake her.

...

Joshi: Do you remember anything? Before you were under me, do you have any memories from begore? K: I have memories, but...They're not real, they're just implants. Joshi: Tell me one, from when you were a kid. K: I feel a little strange sharing a childhood story considering I was never a child. Joshi: Would it help you to share if I told you it was an order?

...

Joi: Data makes the man. A and C and T and G. The alphabet of you, all from four symbols. I'm only two...one and zero. K: Half as much, but twice as elegant, sweetheart.

...

Joi: I always knew you were special. Maybe this is how. A child...of woman born, pushed into the world, wanted, loved. K: And if it were true, I'd hunted for the rest of my life, by someone just like me. Joi: It's OK to dream a little. Isn't it? K: Not if you're us.

K: Stop! How do I know if a memory is an implant, or not? Joi: Who makes the memories?

...

Ana [a memory maker]: Replicants live such hard lives. Made to do what we'd rather not. I can't help your future, but I can give you good memories to think back on and smile. K: That's nice. Ana: It's better than nice. It feels authentic. And if you have authentic memories you have... real human responses. Wouldn't you agree? K: Are all constructed, or, do you ever use ones that are real? Ana: It's illegal to use real memories, officer. K: How can you tell the difference? Can you tell if something... really happened? Ana: They all think it's about more detail. But that's not how memory works. We recall with our feelings. Anything real should be a mess.

Joshi [to K]: I can help you get out of this station alive. But you have 48 hours to get back on track. Surrender your gun and badge. And your next baseline test is out of my hands.

...

K: You were right. You were right about everything. Joi: Shh.

...

Luv: Here, you are. You tiny thing. In the face of the fabulous and new, your only thought is to kill it?! For fear of great change?! You can't hold the tide with a broom. Joshi: Except that I did.

...

Deckard [to K]: Mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now... would you, boy?...Many is the night I dream of cheese. Toasted, mostly.

...

Deckard: What are you doing here? K: I heard the piano. Deckard: Don't lie. It's rude. You're a cop. K: I'm not here to take you away. Deckard: Oh, yeah? Then, what? K: I just have some questions. Deckard: What questions?

...

Deckard [to K]: You like whiskey? I got millions of bottles of whiskey.

Deckard: I had your job. I was good at it. K: It was simpler then. Deckard: Why are you making it complicated? K: Why don't you just answer the question? Deckard: What question? K: I didn't figure you, as one for bullshit. What's her name? Deckard [after a long pause]: Rachael. Her name was Rachael.

...

K: What happened to the kid? Who put it in the orphanage? Was it you? Deckard: I was long gone, by then. K:You didn't even meet your own kid? Why? Deckard: Because that was the plan. I showed them how to scramble the records, cover their tracks. Everyone had a part. Mine was to leave. Then the Blackout came, baked over everything. Couldn't have found the child, if I tried. K: Did you want to? Deckard: Not really. K: Why not? Deckard: Because we were being hunted! I didn't want our child found. Taken apart. Dissected! Sometimes, to love someone...you gotta be a stranger.

...

Luv [to K]: Bad dog!

...

Joi: Stop! Luv [about to stomp her out of existence]: I do hope you're satisfied with our product. Joi [to K]: I love you...

...

Mariette : There's someone who wants to meet you. You can trust us. This is Freysa. She fought with Sapper on Calantha. K: I recognize you. Did you help him hide the child? Freysa: Oh... I was there. I saw a miracle delivered. A perfect little face crying up at me. Mad as thunder. K: Were you with her?...Rachael? Freysa: I held her as she died. We hid the child, and made a vow to keep our secret. That's why Sapper let you kill him. I knew that baby meant we are more than just slaves. If a baby can come from one of us, we are our own masters. A revolution is coming. And we're building an army. I want to free our people. If you want to be free, join us. Deckard, Sapper, you, me; our lives mean nothing next to a storm that's coming.

...

Freysa: You cannot allow Deckard to lead Wallace to me. You must kill Deckard. Deckard only wanted his baby to be safe. And she is. When the time comes, I will show her to the world. And she will lead our army. K: She? Freysa: Of course. Rachael had a daughter. With my own eyes, I saw her come. I dressed her blue when it was time for her to go. K: It was a boy that you hid. Freysa: That is just a piece of the puzzle.

...

Niander: All these years you looked back on that day, drunk on the memory of its perfection. How shiny, her lips! How instant, your connection! Did it never occur to you, that's why you were summoned in the first place? Designed to do nothing short of, fall for Rachael, right then and there. All to make that single, perfect...specimen. That is, if you were designed. Love, or mathematical precision. Yes? No?Decard: I know what's real.

Does it make any difference that the creator of Wonder Woman was a man? Or that he was a Harvard psychologist? Or that he had engaged in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and their lover?

And what does make a woman a wonder? And wouldn't it seem plausable that to create such a character being a woman would be a preriquisite? After all, it's not for nothing that our Wonder Woman here would in many respects be indistinguishable from a Super Man. A warrior, in other words, hellbent on reflecting all that is said to embody truth, justice and the American way.

Though gorgeous of course. And with some rather "perverse" sexual inclinations. Well, back then anyway.

Still, this is less a film about her than about Professor Marston. And his wife. And their lover. A relationship out of which he invented Wonder Woman in 1941. Though there were still any number of political waves on the horizon relating to gender norms.

And how all this all gets tangled up in turn in such things as "class" and "race" "sexual orientation". Cluttering up the political narratives all that more.

[and what if we really could invent a machine that would unequivocally distinguish truth from lies? How applicable would it be pertaining to such human interactions as love and lust?]

In fact, whenever all of the possible combination of exeriences that human beings can engage sexually are actually considered and then acted upon, who would ever be able to pin it all down philosophically or morally. Let alone psychologically.

That titantic struggle between, "the world won't let us" and "the world can't stop us." In other words, where are the lines to be drawn? And who is to decide this? If only for the sake of the "children".

And then there's this part: William Marston's granddaughter Christie Marston publicly stated that her family "completely rejects any claims made in the film and in no way support this work of fiction".

IMDb

Often erroneously thought to be the inventor of the polygraph, better known as the lie-detector, William Moulton Marston was actually the inventor of the systolic blood pressure cuff, an important component of the polygraph. This misconception is reinforced by the biographical picture "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women." The invention of the polygraph is more appropriately credited to John Augustus Larson.

A very close friend of the Marston family is Lynda Carter, the star of Wonder Woman

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women [2017]Written and directed by Angela Robinson

Josette Frank [director of Child Study Association of America]: As you know, we are reviewing your handling of Wonder Woman...given the current controversy. William: You're gonna give her to someone else? She's a smash success because of me. I created her. Josette: Dr. Marston, Wonder Woman has drawn criticism for being full of depictions of bondage, spanking, torture, homosexuality, and other sex perversions. Would you say that's a fair assessment of your work? William: I can see how people with a fairly limited understanding of my work could arrive at these simplistic descriptions. They'd be wrong, of course.

Remember, this is decades and decades ago.

William [before his class]: Are you normal...? What is normal....?

...

Elizabeth: The cocksuckers denied me again. I'm smarter, more rigorous more accomplished than any of the so-called "men" in this department. William: They will issue you a degree from Radcliffe. Elizabeth: That degree is a load of horseshit. You know it. William: It is not. It is taught by the same professors, it has the same standards. Elizabeth: Precisely. If it is the same work then why can I not receive a PhD from Harvard? Because I have a vagina?

...

William: You are very brilliant. Elizabeth: I know. Willliam: Smarter than me. Elizabeth: I know that too. [he holds her and pushes her down on a table]Elizabeth: Dear, we... We can't fuck in the laboratory like animals. William: Why not?

...

William [of Olive]: You won't be jealous? Elizabeth: No, I don't experience sexual jealousy. Who am I to fight nature? I'm your wife, not your jailer.

...

Elizabeth: Your duties are to assist me and my husband with our research. We keep our papers in the filing cabinet along the wall. Please familiarize yourself with our current research notes...Oh, and if you fuck my husband, I'll kill you. Olive: Excuse me? Elizabeth: Heh. Look, I feel sorry for you. No, really, I...I do, it's not your fault. It's, um, your beauty, it's like a...Well, it's like a handicap. It's like having three legs or something. Olive: Mrs. Marston, I... Elizabneth: No, there's no need to be defensive. I'm just asking you the courtesy of please not fucking my husband. Can you do that for me? Olive: Yes.

...

Elizabeth: No, Freud is full of shit. What would I want with a penis? Seriously, it would be exhausting to have one organ constantly directing the course of your life. Olive, do you want a penis? Olive: No. Elizabeth: Do you think that you have penis envy? Olive: Elizabeth: I don't understand what that means, sorry. Will you stop apologizing? Do you know how many times a minute you apologize? Olive: Sorry. William: Elizabeth, peach, penis envy is figurative. It means a woman experiences an envy of the male position in the world. His dominance. His ability to penetrate not just the woman, but...life.Olive: Then perhaps I do have it. I do envy men's position in life, their physical strength, their entitlement. My aunt said, "A woman must not be told how to use her freedom...she must find out for herself." Elizabeth: Your aunt, my dear, is quoting Margaret Sanger. Olive: My aunt is Margaret Sanger.

...

Elizabeth: So, what you're saying is, you are descended from two of the most famous radical feminists in the world and yet you were raised by nuns?Olive: Yes.

...

William [lecturing a class]: Dominance, inducement, submission and compliance. All human relationships break down into the interplay between these categories of emotion. A person is most happy when they are submissive to a loving authority. It is essential that a person submits to an authority willingly...that it is their idea. We get into trouble when people feel forced to do something they don't want to do, and that is merely compliance. People who comply instead of submit are unhappy and repressed and this can lead to resentment. Taken to its extremes it can lead to crime, war, fascism. Student: How do you avoid compliance? It seems like that is built into most situations.William: Inducement. Inducement is the act of seducing somebody to your way of thinking... dominating them so completely that what you want is what they want and they love giving it to you...and that, ladies, is the key to life, to love, to happiness to peace. Women are better at inducement than men.

...

Elizabeth [to William hooked up to the lie detector]: Are you in love with Olive Byrne? William: No. Elizabeth [after the needle jumps]: Hmm. Well, I guess it works after all.

Josette: You've incorporated the lie-detector test into the Wonder Woman comic...her Golden Lasso, it forces criminals to tell the truth. William: That is correct. Josette: Why is Wonder Woman an Amazon? William: In Greek mythology, Amazons were a powerful tribe of women who lived without men. Josette: Without men? William: It is important to me that young girls realize they have the power within themselves to create their own destiny. To be president of the United States if they want. Josette: And Wonder Woman's catchphrase is "Suffering Sappho." William: Sappho is a famous poet from ancient Greece.... Josette: Known for her love of women.William: It is my belief that passion and emotion between women is perfectly natural. Josette: Dr. Marston, lesbianism is an emotional illness. As a doctor of psychology your endorsement of this abnormal behavior in the pages of your comic is reckless.

...

M.C. Gaines: What the fuck are you doing? William: That woman has been an enemy of the Wonder Woman comic from the beginning. M.C. Gaines: She's the head of the Child Study Association of America. Every parent in America listens to what she has to say. I told you to smooth it out. I mean, we got politicians sniffing around this thing. They're talking Senate subcommittees. You know what that would mean to us? You got to go in there and play ball. William: And if I don't?M.C. Gaines: Then I can't protect you anymore...or Wonder Woman.

...

William [to Elizabeth]: What is it that attracts you to her? She is beautiful guileless, kind, pure of heart. You are brilliant, ferocious, hilarious, and a grade A bitch. Together, you are the perfect woman.

...

William [to Elizabeth]: We've been fired.

...

Olive: I want to be with you. I want to be with both of you. William: Yes.Elizabeth: Are you both insane? Do you not realize what has happened? We are ruined. All of us. You will not be able to marry. You will not be able to teach. I will not be able to do anything. What kind of a world do you think we're living in? William: We are in love.Elizabeth: We cannot be in love.William: It's unorthodox, sure, but it's...Elizabeth: It's preposterous. It is a fantasy, and we have to live in reality. And in this world and these lives, love it doesn't matter. Olive: I don't believe that. Elizabeth: Well, then you're a fool. A stupid, simpering dilettante. Olive: I'm pregnant.

...

Josette: Wonder Woman has a secret identity. William: Yes, she does. Josette: Why is that? William: She has to hide her true self from man's world.

...

Josette: Why don't you write Wonder Woman under your real name? William: Well, that's just my therapy practice. It avoids confusion. Josette: It's not because most Americans have a low opinion of comic writers? William: I do not care what most of America thinks. Josette: Or is it something else? I wonder if you're the one with the secret identity.

...

Elizabeth: Honey, this is pornography. Olive: Isn't this illegal? William: Yes, yes, but look closely. Elizabeth: I don't understand what we're supposed to be looking at. William: Okay. Dominance, inducement, submission, compliance. This imagery is a metaphor for DISC theory. These pictures communicate in an instant what I've spent my entire career trying to explain. This is what we should be doing. Elizabeth: Sweetheart...this is pornography.

...

Charles: Notice the finesse of the knots. Rope work is not an art for dullards. People come to me all the time lost, searching. They ask me why the rope, or costume the role play. I tell them we play roles all the time in everyday life, constantly. Out there we are bound by much stronger chains than the ones we use in here. But the truth is men and women long to control and to be controlled. It is human nature...Real life is full of pain and disappointment but fantasy, fantasy...is possibility.

...

Elizabeth [as William ties Olive's wrist with a rope]: Olive, don't let him do this to you. Olive: I don't mind. Elizabeth [turning to walk away]: You...Why the fuck don't you mind?

...

William: Please, dear, have an open mind. Elizabeth: How much have you spent on this, anyway? And the rest of that smut he sold you. William: It's research material. ERlizabeth: When will you stop justifying the whims of your cock with science?

...

Elizabeth: A comic book, Bill?William: Well, it's perfect. I'm going to inject my ideas right into the thumping heart of America. I mean, I'll get a real artist to draw it properly. Elizabeth: She's an Amazon princess that lives on an island of all women. William: Paradise Island. Elizabeth: And a man crash-lands on the island?William: Yeah, Steve Trevor, the spy. Elizabeth: And she wears a burlesque outfit. William: Well, it's athletic.Elizabeth: And silver bracelets. William: They deflect bullets. Elizabeth: And all her friends are sorority girls who have spanking parties, and everybody fights Nazis and rides in an invisible plane? William: Yes.Elizabeth: Bill. We love you truly, so much. But nobody...I say this with all the compassion and truth in my heart...nobody will ever publish this.

...

William: Excuse me. I'm looking for a Mr. Gaines. M.C. Gaines: Who's asking? William: Dr. William Moulton Marston. I have an 11:00. M.C. Gaines: You have five minutes. William: You are the man that discovered Superman? M.C. Gaines: Yup. William: You're a man of considerable taste, which is why I've come to you first.

...

William [to M.C. Gaines]: Suprema, the Wonder Woman will not be an ordinary comic book. But instead, the start of a powerful feminist movement. She will be carefully crafted, psychological propaganda based on a lifetime of research into the human mind inserted into a populist medium to further equal rights for women.

...

Voice [on a newsreel]: With war raging across Europe there's a new hero in town fighting for our freedom, and she's a lady. They're calling her Wonder Woman. She's the latest and prettiest sensation in a superhero craze that's sweeping the nation. Sales are skyrocketing, and she's outselling Superman. But not everybody is as enthusiastic about the new comic-book craze....

...

M.C. Gaines: We've been banned. William: What do you mean? M.C. Gaines: Put on a list, banned. William: Well, by who? M.C. Gaines: By the National League of Decency. William: They're fascists. M.C. Gaines: No, Catholics. William: Same difference.

Josette: You don't even deny that these images are overtly sexual. William: An erotic component is necessary. How else is submission supposed to be pleasurable? I am teaching readers to submit to a loving authority. And that submission is pleasurable. Young boys must learn this if they are to grow up respecting powerful women. Josette: What is powerful about a woman running around in a bathing suit?

...

Josette: Wonder Woman is filled with violence, torture and sadomasochism.

...

Olive: They had no right to... Elizabeth: No, they did. They have every right. Their right to shun us and perhaps their right to beat us. Not because we fuck each other, but because we're foolish enough to think that we're better than them. I'm not a scientist. I'm a secretary. And Bill is not a psychologist. He writes comic books. And you...I don't know what you are.

...

Elizabeth [to Olive]: You have to go.

...

William: You gave up. The both of you. I'm going to die...and you will be left all alone with your bitterness and your rage and your knowledge that you loved her and she loved you, and you threw it away for them. Elizabeth: Our kids don't deserve to be attacked, to be ostracized. William: Our children are inheriting your shame. Is that how you want them to live? Is that the lesson you want to teach them? Now, do you love her?Elizabeth: Yes. William: And have you always? Elizabeth: Yes. William: So then ask her. Elizaberth: Olive...will you forgive me? No.

...

William: You need to submit to her.Elizaberth: I don't know what you're talking about. William: You cannot win every argument. You cannot dominate all the time. Get on your knees. Elizabeth: I will not. This is absurd. William: Get on your knees. [she gets to her knees]Elizabeth: I... Olive, please forgive me. William: More. Elizabeth: Please take us back. I thought I knew everything. I thought love wasn't enough. But it...It has to. It has to be enough because we cannot...We cannot live without you. I cannot live without you. Please come back to us.

...

Title card: Marston passed away in 1947 from cancer. Elizabeth and Olive lived together for another 38 years until Olive's death in 1985. Elizabeth lived to be 100 years old.

Title card: After he died, Marston's overtly sexual motifs were stripped from the Wonder Woman comic book...along with her super powers.

Title card: In 1972, Gloria Steinem reclaimed Wonder Woman by putting her on the cover of the first issue of Ms. magazine. Wonder Woman's super powers were eventual restored.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

More or less, we still live in a culture where the lives of any particular "teenagers" can revolve almost entirely around the world as they have come to understand it in their heads. As that has come to be shaped and molded by our grimly ubiquitous "pop culture". In other words, their lives are generally headed in the direction that has been cleared for them. Nothing of any real consequence has come along yet to yank them out of orbit. Everything basically comes to revolve around "hanging out, looking for kicks, navigating first love, and vying for popularity."

Then something happens. And while this something can happen to anyone and in any number of possible combination of circumstances, for some what does happen is so traumatic it "changes everything". From that point on lives reconfigure irrevocably. It's just that very, very few are willing to think through what the actual philosophical implications of this might be going all the way back to grappling with, among other things, "the meaning of life".

How does this fit into that?

Only this is back in the pre-Columbine High days. Back when the "innocence of youth" almost still had some meaning to it. Back when kids like this were being mass-produced by the tens of thousands. You watch them interact here and it begins to dawn on you just how easily the dots might be connected between Josh up on the screen and Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold methodically making their way down the hallways.

Daryl: Guys, yesterday my parents fucking rented that movie True Lies. And after they went to sleep, I fucking watched that scene where she stripped over and over and over and over and over. I must have jerked off two and a half times. Charlie: Is that a record? Daryl: I tried for three, but my dick got sore.

American youth!!!

Charlie: I'm gonna take it out. Zach: What did you do! What did you fucking do! What did you do! Josh, what the fuck did you do! Charlie: Okay, I'm gonna pull it out. Zach: No, no, no. Don't take it out! You're supposed to leave it in!!

Zach: I'm just saying that we should probably get our story straight... Charlie: There is no story, Zach. Zach: Yeah, well, if somebody asks. Charlie: I don't remember. I don't remember what I did last Tuesday. So why would I remember what I did this Tuesday? Probably I went home after school, stayed there alone until my parents got home. It's what I do most weekdays. Zach: Okay, that's good. Charlie: Okay, so why did you come running over here to the middle school to talk to an eighth grader you barely know? Zach, if anyone asks, we're not friends.

...

Mom: Do you remember Daryl Harper? You two used to play together. Zach: Yeah. But, I mean, that was like a long time ago. Why? Mom: I had a call from his mom earlier. Guess he never came home last night.

...

Zach: Josh, it's kind of important that you, you not do something without talking to me about it first, okay? I mean... If that's okay. Josh: Whatever.Zach: What game is this? Josh, what game is that? [Josh says nothing]Zach: It was a fucking accident! Okay? It happened. A fucking accident!!

...

Zach: And if anybody asks, we didn't see Charlie or Daryl that day, okay? Josh: If anybody asks, we're already fucked.

...

Zach [on the phone]: I think it's Josh. Charlie: You think what's Josh? Zach: I think he killed John Whitcomb.

...

Zach [on the phone]: The sword is gone. Someone took it. I looked, I checked. It's not fucking there. Someone has taken the sword. Charlie: Why would you go back up to the woods? Zach: You know that three people know about that sword, right? You, me, and Josh...I think he went there, he took the sword, he fucked with Daryl's body, and then he went and pushed John Whitcomb off the fucking bridge.

Josh: What? What are you doing? Are you like afraid of me now? Zach: No, I'm not afraid of you. There's just some...Josh, I went off to the woods again. Josh: What? Zach: Yeah, and I saw that someone took the sword.

...

Zach: Josh, I'm willing to draw a line. Really. I'm willing to fucking put everything, like what happened with Daryl, and what maybe happened with John Whitcomb... Josh: What are you talking about what happened with John Whitcomb? Zach: Look, I... We... We can forget about all that stuff and... Look, I know how you feel. Josh [angrily]: No, you fucking don't know how I feel, okay? All you fucking do is say a bunch of shit that you think sounds nice, because you're scared all the time. Well, you're wrong. And you're wrong about me too.

Imagine perusing the movie listings in a newspaper and coming upon one entitled Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. What might be your initial conjecture regarding what it would be about?

Well, I actually came rather close. I figured it had to be about one or another attempt to draw attention to something that had really pissed someone off.

And in this day and age it is hardly unusual for the outrage to be directed at the "criminal justice system". Watch enough "true crime" documentaries and you discover soon enough the appalling amount of incompetency and/or corruption that exists when you are dealing with folks in "law enforcement".

Crimes [some rather heinous] can become "cold cases" over time. But every once in a while folks come along who refuse to let them. They are there pounding on the door, hounding the detectives to do something. It's just that not many will resort to billboards to vent their outrage.

It's one of those films that starts by focusing on a particular set of individuals dealing with a particular set of circumstances that seem important only to them. But then the narrative comes to involve "larger issues" and "bigger themes" that, in turn, come to expose the political realities embedded in institutionalized outcomes. Things unfold not because it's how they ought to unfold but because that's just the way they do.

And there are a lot of unlikeable [and considerably flawed] folks on both sides of this particular shitstorm.

See if you can spot the irony.

Hint: Towards the end it's everywhere.

IMDb

Frances McDormand was hesitant to take the role of Mildred when offered to her, but was eventually convinced by her husband, Joel Coen. She said, "Because at the time he gave it to me I was 58... I was concerned that women from this socioeconomic strata did not wait until 38 to have their first child. So we went back and forth and we debated that quite for a while, and then finally my husband said, 'Just shut up and do it.'

Director Martin McDonagh was inspired to write the movie after seeing billboards about an unsolved crime while traveling "somewhere down in the Georgia, Florida, Alabama corner."

The basis of this story is from actual events in Vidor, Texas just outside of Beaumont, Texas. The police ignored facts and the parents of the poor girl murdered in 1991 by an alleged hometown hero from an old money family. As the police have done nothing and still the billboards are up on I-10.

Mildred: You Red Welby? Red: Yes, ma'am. How may I help you? Mildred: I heard there's three billboards out on Drinkwater Road...you're in charge of renting them out, that right? Red: I didn't know we had any billboards out on Drinkwater. Where is Drinkwater Road? Mildred: It's a road out past the Sizemore turn-off nobody uses since the highway.Red: You are right. Got three billboards out there. Nobody's put nothing up out there since... 1986. That was 'Huggies'. Mildred: How much to rent out all three of 'em the year? Red: A year? You wanna pay for three billboards on a road no-one goes down unless they got lost or they're retards, for a year? Mildred: Quick, ain't ya, Welby?

...

Mildred: What's the law on what ya can and cannot say on a billboard? I assume it's ya can't say nothing defamatory, and ya can't say, 'Fuck' 'Piss' or 'Cunt'. That right? Red: Or... Anus. Mildred: Well I think I'll be alright then.

First billboard: RAPED WHILE DYINGSecond billboard: AND STILL NO ARRESTS?Third billboard: HOW COME, CHIEF WILLOUGHBY?

...

Dixon: He said what?! To your face?! Cedric: No crime has been committed here. Dixon: C'mon, defamation of character ain't a crime? Cedric: It isn't defamation if she's simply asking a question. Dixon: What are you, an idiot? Cedric: Don't call me an idiot, Dixon. Dioxon: I didn't call you an idiot. I asked if you was an idiot. It was a question. Chief Willoughby: He got ya there, Cedric.

...

Reporter: So, Mildred Hayes, why did you put up these billboards? Mildred: Well, my daughter, Angela, she got abducted, and she got raped and murdered seven months ago, on this self-same stretch o' road here. It seems like the local police department is too busy goin' round torturing black folks to be bothered doing anything about solving actual crime. I thought these here billboards might concentrate their minds some.

...

Chief: I'd do anything to catch the guy who did it, Mrs. Hayes. But when the DNA don't match no-one who's ever been arrested, and when the DNA don't match any other crime nationwide, and when there wasn't a single eyewitness from the time she left your house to the time we found her, well, right now there ain't too much more that we can do.Mildred: You Could pull blood from every man and boy in this town, over the age of eight. Chief: There's civil rights laws prevents that, Mrs. Hayes, and what if he was just passing thru town.Mildred: Pull blood from ever' man in the country, then. Chief: And what if he was just passing thru the country? Mildred: If it was me, I'd start up a database, every male baby what's born, stick 'em on it, and as soon as they done something wrong, cross reference it to make a hundred percent certain it was a correct match, then kill 'em. Chief: Yeah, well, there's definitely civil rights laws prevents that.

...

Chief: There's something else, Mildred. I got cancer. I'm dying. Mildred: I know it. Chief: Huh? Mildred: I know it. Most everybody in town knows it. Chief: Then you still putting up those billboard? Mildred: Well, they wouldn't be as effective after you croak, right?

...

Mildred: Y'know what I was thinking about today, Father? I was thinking 'bout those street gangs they got in Los Angeles, the Crips and the Bloods? I was thinking about that buncha new laws they came up with, in the 1980's I think it was, to combat those street-gangs, those Crips and those Bloods. And, if I remember rightly, the gist of what those new laws were saying was if you join one of these gangs, and you're running with 'em, and down the block from you one night, unbeknownst to you, one of your fellow Crips, or your fellow Bloods, shoot up a place, or stab a guy, well, even though you didn't know nothing about it, even though you may've just been standing on a streetcorner minding your own business, what these new laws said was you are still culpable. You are still culpable, by the very act of joining those Crips, or those Bloods, in the first place. Which got me thinking, Father, that whole type of situation is kinda like your Church boys, ain't it? You've got your colors, you've got your clubhouse, you're, for want of a better word, a gang. And if you're upstairs smoking a pipe and reading a bible while one of your fellow gang members is downstairs fucking an altar boy then, Father, just like the Crips, and just like the Bloods, you're culpable. Cos you joined the gang, man. And I don't care if you never did shit or never saw shit or never heard shit. You joined the gang. You're culpable. And when a person is culpable to altar-boy-fucking, or anykinda-boy-fucking, I know you guys didn't really narrow it down, , then they kinda forfeit the right to come into my house and say anything about me, or my life, or my daughter, or my billboards. So, why don't you just finish your tea there, Father, and get the fuck outta my kitchen.

...

Mildred: So how's it all going in the nigger torturing business, Dixon? Dixon: It's 'persons of color'-torturing business, these days, if you want to know.

...

Chief: Don't gimme that look, Mildred. If you got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings then you'd have three cops left and all o' them are gonna hate the fags so what are ya gonna do, y'know?

...

Angela [in a flashback]: So are ya gonna let me borrow the car or what? Mildred: Why don't you just walk, Angela? Why don't you just walk? Angela: You know what, I will walk, I will walk. And y'know what? I hope I get raped on the way. Mildred: Yeah? Well I hope you get raped on the way too!

...

Charlie: What's going on around here? And what the fuck's going on with these fucking billboards, Mildred? Mildred: Kinda self-explanatory, ain't it? Charlie: Well why don't you just explain it to me? Mildred: Guess it ain't self-explanatory then. Well, y'know, I guess I wanted certain people's minds kept on certain people's jobs, is all. I hadn't heard a word from 'em in seven goddam months, but I tell ya this, I heard an awful lot from 'em since I put those billboards up... Charlie: You think this has focused their minds? I'll tell you what it's focused their minds on. It's focused their minds on how exactly are they gonna fuck you up. Mildred: The more you keep a case in the public eye, the better your chances of getting it solved, it's in all the guidebooks, Charlie. Charlie: How much those billboards cost? Mikldred: Bout the same as a tractor-trailer.

...

Charlie: You don't think I don't wish she was still here I know you do. Mildred: I know you do. Charlie: Billboards ain't gonna bring her back, Mildred. Mildred: Neither is fucking nineteen year olds, Charlie. Charlie: Yeah. But I know that.

...

Charlie: I'm such a shitty dad and you're such a great mom. Alright. So how come a week before she died she comes around asking if she can move in with me at my place, cos she couldn't stand the two of yous bitching at each other no more, and fighting with each other no more.Mildred: I don't believe you...Charlie: And I said no, stay at home, your mom loves you. And now I wish I hadn't, cos if I hadn't she'd still fucking be here! Mildred: I don't believe you! Charlie: Don't believe me. Ask Fruit Loop boy.

Mildred [to a deer she spots by the billboards]: Still no arrests. How come, I wonder? Cos there ain't no God and the world's empty and it don't matter what we do to each other? Ooh, I hope not.

...

Chief [from his suicide note]: "My darling Anne. There's a longer letter in the dresser drawer I've been writing for the last week or so. That one covers us, and my memories of us, and how much I've always loved you. This one just covers tonight, and, more importantly, today. Tonight I have gone out to the horses to end it. I cannot say sorry for the act itself, although I know that for a short time you will be angry at me or even hate me for it. Please don't. This is not a case of I came in this world alone, and I'm going out of it alone or anything dumb like that. I did not come in this world alone, my mom was there, and I am not going out of it alone, cos you are there, drunk on the couch, making Oscar Wilde cock jokes. No. This is a case, in some senses, of bravery. Not the bravery of facing a bullet down; the next few months of pain would be far harder than that small flash. No, it's the bravery of weighing up the next few months of still being with you, still waking up with you, of playing with the kids, against the next few months of seeing in your eyes how much my pain is killing you; how my weakened body as it ebbs away and you tend to it are your final and lasting memories of me. I won't have that. Your final memories of me will be us at the riverside, and that dumb fishing game which I think they cheated at, and me inside of you, and you on top of me, and barely a fleeting thought of the darkness yet to come. That was the best, Anne. A whole day of not thinking about it. Dwell on this day, baby, cos it was the best day of my life. Kiss the girls for me, and know that I've always loved you, and maybe I'll see you again if there's another place. And if there ain't, well, it's been Heaven knowing you. Your boy...Bill."

...

Dixon: See, Red? I got issues with white folks too...

...

Abercrombie: None of you cracker motherfuckers got no work to do? Dixon: Ain't that racist?

Chief [from his letter to Mildred]: "Dear Mildred, Dead Man Willoughby here. Firstly I wanted to apologize for dying without catching your daughter's killer. It's a source of great pain to me, and it would break my heart to think you thought I didn't care, cos I did care. There are just some cases where you never catch a break, then five years down the line some guy hears some other guy bragging about it in a bar-room or a jail-cell and the whole thing is wrapped up thru sheer stupidity. I hope that might be true for Angela, I really do. Second, I gotta admit, Mildred, the billboards were a great fucking idea. They were like a chess move. And although they had absolutely nothing to do with my dying, I'm sure that everyone in town will assume that they did, which is why, for Willoughby's counter-move, I decided to pay the next month's rent on 'em. thought it'd be funny, you having to defend 'em a whole 'nother month after they've stuck me in the ground. The joke is on you, Mildred, ha ha, and I hope they do not kill you. So good luck with all that, and good luck with everything else too. I hope and I pray that you get him."

...

Abercrombie: Can I ask you a couple questions? Mildred: You can ask me all the questions you want if you take me down and arrest me. Abercrombie: I'm not gonna arrest you, Mrs. Hayes. I got nothing to arrest you for. Mildred: Not yet you ain't. Abercrombie: We ain't all the enemy, y'know?

...

Mildred: Fuck 'em.

...

James: So you wanna go out to dinner next week? Mildred: I'll go out to dinner with ya. But I ain't gonna fuck ya.

...

Jerome: You sure you still wanna put up the Willoughby one, him dead an' all? Mildred: Why not? He paid for it.

...

Dixon: I don't wanna get your hopes up, alright, but there's a guy, and I think he might be the guy. I got his DNA. I got a lot of it, actually. They're making the checks as we speak. Mildred: He's in jail? Dixon: No, but he ain't gonna be hard to find. Mildred: Why do you think he's the guy? Dixon: I heard him talking about something that he did to a girl in the middle of last year. I couldn't hear all of it, but it sounded a lot like what happened to Angela.

...

Abercrombie: You did good, Jason. You did real good. But he wasn't the guy. Dixon [stunned]: What? Abercrombie: There was no match to the DNA, no matches to any other crimes of this nature, to any crimes at all, in fact. And his record is clean. Maybe he was just bragging. Dixon: He wasn't just bragging. Abercrombie: Well, that's as may be. But at the time of Angela's death he wasn't even in the country. Dixon: Where was he? Abercrombie: I've seen his records of entry and exit to the States, and I've spoken to his Commanding Officer. He wasn't in the country, Dixon. He ain't our guy.

...

Dixon [on the phone]: He wasn't the guy. Mildred: Are you're sure? Dixon: He, um, he wasn't even in the country when it happened. So, whatever he did, he didn't do it round here. I'm sorry I got your hopes up. Mildred: It's alright. At least I had a day of hoping. Which is more than I've had for a while. I'd better go. Dixon: There was there was one thing I was thinking. Mildred: What's that? Dizon: Well... I know he isn't your rapist. He is a rapist, though. I'm sure of that. Mildred: What are you saying to me? Dixon: I got his license plate. I know where he lives. Mildred: Where's he live? Dixon: Lives in Idaho.Mildred: That's funny. I'm driving to Idaho in the morning. Dixon: Want some company? Mildred: Sure.

...

Mildred: Hey, Dixon. Dixon: Yeah? Mildred: I need to tell you something. It was me who burned down the police station. Dixon: Well, who the hell else would it have been? Mildred: Dixon? Dixon: Yep? Mildred: You sure about this? Dixon: About killing this guy? Not really. You? Mildred: Not really. I guess we can decide along the way.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

One might assume that Tonya Harding's own description of herself is the one to fall back on. But that still only works with regards to those aspects of her life that can be demonstrated to in fact be true. True objectively for all of us.

For example there are the facts embedded in her relationship with Nancy Kerrigan. Certain events can be shown to be true because they did in fact happen. The role Harding played in the attempt to club Kerrigan out of the competition. What can be established here as in fact "reality"?

On the other hand, there are the far more conflicted reactions to what she did. And with respect to all of the complex emotional and psychological variables in play regarding her motivation and intention. What propelled her to do what she did? How is her past connected to the present?

And then it all gets mangled up in class. Tonya, perceived by many as the ungainly product of the working class, and Nancy, perceived by many as a so much more sophisticated and refined product of the better upbringing.

From The Times

Harding and Kerrigan were rivals in a cartoon soap opera about class: Harding was trailer trash and Kerrigan was a hometown beauty queen. Tonya was given her first gun at the age of five and lived in eight homes in six grim towns before she was 18. She smoked and skated to heavy metal music. Nancy was brought up by a loving, stable family, the all-American girl with the perfect teeth.

Only, as the article notes further, In America "class" revolves less around money and more around such things as beauty and culture and style and elegance and polish.

So, what really did happen?

Title card: Based on the irony free, wildly contradictory, and totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly.

Or, perhaps, as Tonya puts it: "And the haters always say, Tonya, tell the truth. But there's no such thing as truth. I mean it's bullshit. Everyone has their own truth. And life just does whatever the fuck it wants."

So, you tell me.

IMDb

Although Margot Robbie trained extensively for the role, she wasn't able to perform a triple axel, nor could a skating double be found as very few women figure skaters are able to perform the jump, producer Tom Ackerley stated, "There has been only six women since Tonya who have done a triple axel, even if there was one who was doing it today, she'd be training for the Olympics and couldn't risk doing it for the film." The jump was accomplished with the use of visual effects.

When Tonya Harding herself first saw the film, she particularly liked the "Suck my dick!" line. She told Margot Robbie that she wished she had actually said that in real life.

Title card: Based on the irony free, wildly contradictory, and totally true interviews with Tonya Harding and Jeff Gillooly.

...

Mother [to the camera]: Tonya's my 5th child from husband number 4. She was always a handful. And I guess we spoiled her. Which is a goddamned hat trick when you haven't got shit your entire life. Still, I drove her to competitions, practices. I sewed her all her costumes. But to her, her mother's a monster.

...

Coach [to the camera]: Generally people either love Tonya or are not big fans. Just like people either love America or are not big fans. Tonya was totally American.

...

Jeff [to the camera]: I mean at 27 I was the most hated man in America. Maybe the world. Um... with a mustache I still can't apologize enough for.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: What's people's impression of me? That I'm a real person. No. I never apologize for growing up poor or being a red neck. Which is what I am. You know, in a sport where the friggin' judges want you to be this Old-Timely version of what a woman's supposed to be...For being the first U.S. Woman To land a triple Axel. So fuck 'em.

...

Title card: Portland, Oregon --- 40 years earlier

...

Mother [to Tonya who is a "soft four"]: Go on, skate.

...

Mother [to the camera]: The thing about Tonya was, she skated better when she was enraged. If there was no you can't do it type of thing, she wouldn't do it. On the ice, I was there to...inspire her.

...

Tonya: Margie Sussman called us white trash. Mom told me "Spit in her milk!" Father: I hope you didn't do that. Tonya: Not yet... Do you love her, Dad? Father: I guess. Do you? Tonya: Yeah. Father: Like you love me? Tonya: Nope.

...

Coach: The judges want figure skaters to be...Mother: Yeah. Rich, prissy, a-HolesCoach...well rounded. It's a question of fitting in. Mother: She's 12 and she lands fucking triples. She doesn't fit in. She stands out. Coach: She stands out because she looks like she chops wood every morning. Mother: She does chop wood every morning.

...

Mother: You a gardener or a flower, John?Jeff: It's Jeff. Mother: In a relationship there's a flower and a gardener. Jeff: Um, I don't know. I mean I...Mother: I'm a gardener who wants to be a flower. How fucked am I? This one can't garden to save her life. You're gonna have to do all the gardening there fella. Tonya: Mom! Mother: What? You two fuck yet?

...

Tonya [to Jeff]: My parents had me quit school so I can concentrate on skating.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: Jeff was the first boy I ever loved. The only catch was he'd beat the living hell outta me. And I thought it was my fault. Nancy gets hit one time and the whole world shits. For me it was an all the time occurrence.

...

Mother: I don't know, Tonnie. I would never be with someone who fuckin' hit me. Tonya: You hit dad. Mother: That's different. Tonya: Anyway he said he was sorry. Mother: Seriously though. You're a dumb piece of shit who thinks she deserves to get hit. Tonya: How'd I get that idea? Mother: Maybe he should hit you. Yeah. Maybe you'll learn to keep your big mouth shut. Sure helps me out.

...

Mother [to the camera after a flashback where she sticks Tonya with a knife]: Oh, please! Show me a family that doesn't have ups and downs.

...

Tonya [to the judges]: Hey! How do I get a fair shot here? Cause I'm up at 5 every morning working my ass off. Does someone wanna just tell me to my face you're never gonna give me scores I deserve? Judge: This is how it's done. Some of these girls have paid their dues. Tonya: I don't give a shit! I out-Skated em today. Judge: We also judge on presentation. Tonya: Well you know what? If you can come up with $5000 for a costume for me then I won't have to make one. Till then, just stay out of my face. Judge: Maybe you're just not as good as you think. Maybe you need to pick another sport. Tonya: Suck my dick!

...

Tonya [to the camera]: You do dumb things when you're young. Like marrying Jeff. The wedding was nice. It made sense at the time. I mean, I could have insurance. Good benefits all around. I mean, he had a car. Plus I was doing 6 hours a day of practice and competitions while I worked at a hardware store. And I ran a forklift, and a drill press and I did welding.

Cue the triple axle:

Martin [Hard Copy reporter to the camera]: Most people don't even understand how insanely difficult it is to attempt a triple Axel. There's a reason no one was trying it.Coach: You skate backward and then take off from a forward position on your left leg and then somehow... Mother: Fuckin' hurl yourself blindly 3 and a 1/2 rotations like you're light as shit which I'm telling you Tonya never was. Coach: Land on the opposite foot on the back outside edge of a razor thin blade. Jeff: It's that extra half rotation when you already did 3. That made us call Tonya the Charles Barkley of skating. It was bad ass.

...

Coach [to Tonya before a big competition]: No woman in the history of U.S. Figure skating has landed a triple Axel. All those women who came before you, not 1 of them did it. The skating association doesn't think you can do it. "Trashy Tonya' doesn't belong." Your own mother doesn't think so. Now show them.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: Oh my God! I mean it was totally the most awesomest thing. Cause leading up it, you're like I can't do it! I can't. And then Bam! I can. And all those people who said I couldn't make it. Well fuck you. I did! I proved everyone wrong. I was loved. I can't describe how that felt. There. I mean, there was people standing up. And I was just for the first time, I knew. I knew I was the best figure skater in the world.

...

Jeff: I'm sorry. Nobody ever really asks me about this anymore. I was blind-Sided. As soon as she got back from nationals she was an entirely different person. And that person didn't want old Jeff no more.

...

Martin [to the camera]: Suddenly Kristi & Nancy were coming in 2nd & 3rd. Tonya was coming at 2nd at world championships & winning Skate America. So the skating community the feeling was like, Oh my god. What the fuck! This is our skating champion?!! Tonya did the triple Axel no one else could or even had the balls to try. Tonya Harding wasn't the image...Tonya [to the camera]: Could I interrupt with a quick word about Nancy kerrigan? It'll just take a sec. Nancy and I were friends. Okay? We were roommates sometimes on the road. But the press wanted Nancy to be the Princess and me to be the pile of crap...to sale papers. I mean what kind of friggin' person bashes in their friend's knee? Who would do that to a friend?

...

Tonya [to the camera after failing to do the triple axle at the Olympics]: So I'd broken off my skate blade... 2 days before in practice. And they put it back on a little off. So all my landings were off. All of them. I mean, that wasn't my fault.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: When you come in 4th at the Olympics, you don't get endorsement deals. You get the 6 A.M. Shift at spud city.

...

Coach: The Olympic committee announced today that the next Olympics are going to be 2 years instead of 4. No heavy metal. Lose the blue nail Polish. Tonya: I'm too outta shape. Coach: Pear is a shape. The world's giving you a 2nd chance. I know you don't believe in them but I do.

...

Tonya: I know that you guys don't like me. But I'm landing all my jumps out there.Judge: Tonya. It's never been entirely about the skating. I'll deny I ever said it honey, but you're just not the image that we want to portray. You're representing our country, for fuck's sake. We need to see a wholesome American family. And you..you just refuse to play along. Tonya: I don't have a wholesome American family. Why can't it just be about the skating?

...

Mother: Poor fuckin' you. I didn't stay home making apple brown Bettys. No, I made you a champion! Knowing you'd hate me for it. That's the sacrifice a mother makes. I wish I had a mother like me. Instead of nice. Nice gets you shit. I didn't like my mother either. So what? I fucking gave you a gift. Tonya: You cursed me. You are a monster. Mother: Spilt milk, baby.

Cue "the incident":

Tonya [to the camera]: I mean, it's what you all came for folks! The fucking incident. Martin: The incident. Coach: The incident. Mother: The fucking incident! Jeff: Everyone remembers the incident differently and that's a fact. Some people honest to god remember Tonya whacking Nancy herself.

...

Cop: I'm gonna need to talk with you. Tonya: Goddammit, Jeff what'd you do? Cop: We've received a death threat. Tonya: From Jeff? Cop: Against you. Tonya: What the fuck?Jeff: What did they say exactly? Cop: "If Harding skates today, she'll get a bullet in the back". Tonya: What the fuck? Coach: How seriously should we take this?

...

Tonya [to the camera]: It's bullshit! I mean, The FBI found this piece of paper in some random dumpster supposedly in my hand writing with Nancy's training schedule or something on it. Martin: It was the arena Nancy skated at and her training times. I mean why do you need training times if all you were doing was mailing letters right? You know, I mean, look, Jeff Gillooly can change his story all he wants to make himself feel better but he confessed to the FBI. Guilty.Jeff: I told the FBI that Tonya was in on planning it which she was. But the plan was to mail some letters.. Tonya didn't know about the assault cause there was never suppose to be an assault. Just letters.

...

Jess: Sweetie, the death threats off. Tonya: Whatever!

...

Martin [to the camera after Kerrigan is attacked]: I mean we had no idea that something like this could be done by two of the biggest boobs in a story populated solely by boobs.

...

Tonya [on the phone]: Turn on the fucking TV. It's everywhere. Jeff: What are you talking about? Tonya: Nancy Kerrigan. Some guy just fucking broke her fucking knee. Jeff: No, no, no, no! It's supposed to be letters... Tonya: It's not a fucking letter Jeff, they broke her fucking knee. Jess: ...like a, like a death threat. Tonya: Jeff, I'm telling you, forget the death threats, the guy broke her knee.Jeff [watching the news report on TV]: NOOOOO!!!!!

...

Mother [watching Jeff on TV]: Fucking mustache.

...

Jeff: Nobody was supposed to get hurt. It was supposed to be psychological warfare, right? Shawn: What if the psychological warfare didn't work, What if...it didn't scare her? Then what? You know all of our hard work would've been for nothing. Jeff: What hard work? It was mailing fucking letters!

...

Shawn: Did you not realize that I was the one who I was the one who called the death threat on Tonya? Jeff: What? Shawn: People don't take me seriously, Jeff. But I am in control of the situations. I proved that today.

...

Martin [to the camera]: Shane Stant was clueless. Before the attack he waited outside the arena in Massachusetts where he thought Nancy Kerrigan was training. Now he moved his car every 15 minutes to avoid suspicion. He did this for two days. That's when he found out that Nancy was actually in Detroit.

...

Shane: How did you find me? Cop: Next time you pull off a hit, son, don't put it on Visa.

Jeff: We play it cool. After all, we both have alibis. Tonya: What for? Alibis? For Wheaties? Jeff: Wheaties? What are you talking about?Tonya: My endorsement. What are you talkin' about? Jeff: The attack. Agent: Excuse us. We're with the FBI.

...

Shawn: I never said anything! Jeff: Then how come they know the name Derrick, Shawn? Shawn: I don't know. How could you even ask me that? I could withstand torture and I'd still never talk. They could never break me! [cut to Shawn spreading the word all over town]Shawn: The whole Nancy Kerrigan thing? That was my crew. We were paid $65,000 to take her out. Then my team obtained press credentials by beating up a reporter. That's what gets us inside the rink. Bam! My hit man whacks Kerrigan 3 times with a retractable baton.

...

FBI Agent: Shawn? Shawn: Jeff, did it! Jeff Gillooly, did it!!

...

Jeff: What part of keeping your mouth shut was unclear, you stupid fucking cunt? Tonya: There's...There's more to this than you're telling me, isn't there...? Jeff: Shut up Tonya I'm telling you! Tonya: Jeff? Did you do it? Goddamn it. Shit. What the fuck, Jeff? Fuck, what the fuck? I mean, this is my fucking life. This is...Skating is my whole fucking life! What did you do? What did you do? What did you actually fucking do, Jeff?[Jeff slaps her in the face]

...

Tonya [to the camera]: And then Bam! Nails me right in the freakin' face. That's when I fucking knew. I mean he has never admitted to me, wouldn't care anymore anyways, but he's never admitted to me that he actually did it. But I knew. In that moment I knew he planned it. And he had it done.

...

Tonya: Look Jeff, I, I mean what did you want me to say? I told them that you did this because you did fucking did this! Jeff [outside their locked bedroom door]: Tonya, what am I supposed to do? I do not know. Tonya: I...I really think that you should just kill yourself.

...

Connie Chung [reporting on TV]: Here in Portland Oregon, another day of practice for skater Tonya Harding. She's still working out everyday right here behind me, fully expecting she'll compete later this month at the Olympics in Norway. Matt Lauer: Police and the FBI continue looking into last weeks attack on skater Nancy Kerrigan. Reporter: Even as the U.S. Figure Skating Association convenes a hearing panel to consider where there are grounds to remove Tonya Harding from the American Olympic team. Ann Curry: Harding's former husband said Tuesday that she knew about the attack on Nancy Kerrigan from the beginning.

...

Reporter: Tonya's mom put out a red velvet rope in front of her house. Told us if we wanted to take her picture we all had to stand behind it. And we did.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: I thought being famous was gonna be fun. I was loved...for a minute. Then, I was hated. Then I was just a punchline. It was like being abused all over again. Only this time it was by you. All of you. You're all my attackers too.

...

Mother: Hey...hon, did you know about the attack? Well, you can tell me. [Tonya starts to pat her down]Mother: What? What are you looking for? What are you... stop it! This is a...[Tonya finds the tape recorder]Mother: I still meant everything I said. Tonya: Get the fuck out of my house! Get out!!! I

...

Tonya: This is bullshit. I shouldn't have to apologize for something I didn't do. Lawyer: Tonya, there's talk about not letting you skate in the Olympics at all. You need to give them this. We're hanging on by a thread here. Tonya: I earned my place on the team fair and square! Lawyer: Taking out the competition with a retractable baton doesn't strike everyone that way. Tonya: I did not know about it! Coach: And that's exactly what you'll say.

...

Tonya to the press]: I had no prior knowledge of the planned assault on Nancy Kerrigan. I am responsible however for frailing...failing...

...

Tonya [to the camera]: Then when the Olympic Committee threatened to take me off the team, I filed a $10 million lawsuit against them. I mean, it was getting ugly.

...

Tonya [voiceover]: But do you think that CBS who was showin' the games was gonna let this ginormous ratings fucker not happen?

...

Tonya [to the camera]: Can I just say one quick thing about Nancy Kerrigan? So...So my lace breaks which I guess is my fault but really kinda isn't. And I go out and do the same stuff as everybody else I did not get the marks, because...I didn't ever have a shot with the judges to begin with. I mean, it was a big story, but I don't need a big story. I'm a big story on my own when I skate. I did my best and I got 8th. But Nancy...She goes out and gives a beautiful skate, I never said different. She wins a friggin' silver medal. And when they put that medal around her neck.. She looked like she stepped in poo. She does...I mean, come on! How am I the poor sport in all of this? An Olympic silver medal. She looks like she stepped in poo.

...

Judge: Tonya Harding. You are hereby sentenced to 3 years probation, $100,000 fine plus $10,000 to the DA's office for special costs. Another $50,000 to set up a fund for the Special Olympics. 500 hours community service; a psychological evaluation. And your immediate resignation from the US Figure Skating Association. Banning you for life from all Figure Skating Association competitions and events. So ordered.

...

Tonya [to the judge]: You're never gonna let me skate again? I'd rather do jail time. Please... They only got 18 months. They got 18 months. I will do that. You can't...Your Honor. I don't have an education. All I know is skating. That's all I know.

...

David Letterman: The 10 best questions Connie Chung asked Tonya Harding earlier. No.10: "Would you walk through the metal detector, one more time, please?" No. 9: "Do you think you could kick my ass?"...

...

Mother [to the camera]: I never see Tonya anymore and this is fine. I could care less. I lead a full life.. very happy.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: Once I was banned from figure from figure skating for life, I did not have a lot of options. Did what I had to do to just stay in the public eye and pay the bills. I was the second most known person behind Bill Clinton in the world. That meant something. The people still wanted to see me. So I became a lady boxer. I mean, why not? Violence was always what I knew anyway.

...

Tonya [to the camera]: America, you know...They want someone to love but they want someone to hate. And they want it easy. But what's easy? And the haters always say, Tonya Tell the truth. But there's no such thing as truth. I mean it's bullshit. Everyone has their own truth. And life just does whatever the fuck it wants. That's the story on my life! And that's the fucking truth!

...

Title card: LaVona Harding and Tonya have had no contact in several years. Last Tonya heard, LaVona was living in Washington State behind a porn shop.

Jeff Gillooly changed his name to Jeff Stone. After divorcing Tonya he married a woman named Nancy and they opened Nancy Nicole's Hair/Tanning Salon.

Tonya Harding does professional landscaping, and house painting. She lives in close proximity to Jeff Gillooly but they have no contact. She is happily married with a 7 year old son. She want's everyone to know she's a good mother.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Many saw it basically as another liberal parable on political correctness. A Hollywood contraption that stays [stereotypically] right on the surface of things. A treatise on human communication [and love] in our post-modern world. Or as postmodern as it could have been back in the early Sixties.

Cue the white male douche-bag. A brutally sadistic pig. Isn't it always folks like him who make the world as fucked up as it is? And, truly, Michael Shannon was born with the face to play him. Still, somehow the decent, humane and sensitive folks [voiceless though they may be] manage to prevail in the end.

Content aside, this is one of those films often described as "visually stunning". So, if you have to, put it on mute [no pun intended] and just watch the spectacle unfold.

Or, sure, maybe it's just a remake of Splash.

IMDb

Director Guillermo del Toro wrote lengthy backstories for each of the major characters, some of them reportedly running over forty pages long. After casting the roles, he offered them to the actors and said they could choose to utilize or ignore the backstories for their own character. The actors responded differently, with Richard Jenkins saying he ignored the backstory, stating, "The only thing that matters is what happens on screen," while Michael Stuhlbarg said he read the backstory voraciously and found it helpful in his performance.

Director Guillermo del Toro first met Sally Hawkins at the 2014 Golden Globes and pitched the film to her while intoxicated. He says, "I was drunk and it's not a movie that makes you sound less drunk."

It took over nine months to arrive at the look of the creature, and director Guillermo del Toro calls it the most difficult movie he and his team have ever designed.

According to an interview with the National University of Mexico TV channel, Guillermo Del Toro said that if this film had flopped he would have retired from directing altogether.

The Shape Of Water [2017]Written in part and directed by Guillermo del Toro

Flemming: Today, we are receiving a new team and asset here in T-4. This is Dr. Robert Hoffstetler, from our system facility in Galveston. Now, I don't want to bolster or overstate the matter but uh this may very well be the most sensitive asset ever to be housed in this facility.

...

Giles [to Elisa]: It's eternal, see? Tantalus never achieved the escape of death. There's a fruit on the branches was just always out of his reach. And the water in the stream receded every time he stooped down to drink. And so that's why we say things today like "Look at those tantalizing pies."

...

Zelda [to Elisa]: Will you look at this? Look. Some of the best minds in our country peeing all over the floor in this here facility. Mh-mh-mhm. There's pee freckles on the ceiling! How do they get it up there? Just how big a target do they need, you figure?

...

Zelda [to Elisa]: You think the Russians broke in? I don't think so. And If they did, Duane's meatloaf will kill them all, honey.

Zelda: I answer mostly, on account that Elisa can't talk. Strickland: She can't? Is she deaf? Zelda: Mute, sir. She said she can hear you. Strickland: All those scars on your neck. That's what that it cut your voice box, right? Zelda: She said since she was a baby. Strickland: Who would do that to a baby? The world is sinful. Wouldn't you say so, Delilah?

...

Strickland: Well, let me say this upfront. You clean that lab. You get out. The thing we keep in there, is an affront. Do you know what an affront is, Zelda? Zelda: Something offensive? Strickland: That's right. And I should know, I've dragged that filthy thing out of the river muck in South America all the way here And along the way we didn't get to like each other much. Now, you may think that thing looks human Stands on two legs, right? But we're created in the Lord's image. You don't think that's what the Lord looks like, do you? Zelda: I wouldn't know, Sir. What the Lord looks like. Strickland: Well, human, Zelda. He looks like a human, like me. Or even you. Maybe a little more like me, I guess.

Zelda you see is black.

Strickland [on phone]: General Hoyt. Thank you for calling me back, Sir. Hoyt: You feel better? Strickland: Oh yes, Sir. Much better. Pain pills, is all. Hoyt: You lost two fingers. Strickland: Two fingers yeah. He got two fingers. But I still got my thumb, my trigger and my pussy finger.

...

Strickland: Maybe you'd like to get another bite at me. Huh? Go ahead. [the creature lunges at him and he zaps him with the cattle prod]Strickland: I can't tell. Are you begging? 'Cause to me it's just the worst fucking noise I've ever heard.

...

General Hoyt: Good God Almighty, is that it? A lot bigger than I thought. Ugly as sin. Strickland: You know, the natives in the Amazon worshipped it as a God.Hoyt: It doesn't look like much of a God now, does it? Strickland: Well, they were primitive, Sir. You know they tossed offerings into the water, flowers, fruits, crap like that. Then they tried to stop the oil drill with bows and arrows. That didn't turn out too well.

...

Hoyt: Look. You want to put a man in space. He's gonna have to endure conditions the human body just wasn't made for. This gives us an edge against the Soviets. How long can it breathe outside the water? Strickland: Reality is sir we don't know jackshit about this thing.Hoyt: Well, the Soviets want it. We know that much. Those cockeyed bastards. You know, they let them send a dog up in the space and we get a good laugh. Then next thing you know, they send a human up. A Ruskie, orbiting our planet, doing God knows what? Who's laughing now? Krushchev.

...

Dr. Hoffstetler: General Hoyt, sir! You cannot, under any circumstance, kill this creature. Hoyt: Count these stars with me, Son. There's five of them. That means I can do whatever the hell I want. You wanna plead your case? I'll listen to it. But, end of the day, it is my damn decision.

...

Giles: So what if he's alone? We're all alone.[Elisa signs]: Giles: It's the loneliest thing you've ever seen. Well you just said it, right? You just said it. You called it a thing. It's a thing. It's a freak.

...

Giles: Elisa...there's...Alright. Alright. What are we? What are you and I? We are nothing! Nothing. We can't do nothing! I'm sorry. But this-this-this is just...Oh god! He's not even human!Elisa [signing]: If we do nothing, neither are we.

...

Strickland [to Elisa]: You know, I can't figure it out myself. You're not much to look at. Go figure. I keep thinking about you. When you say you're mute, are you entirely silent? Or do you squawk a little? Some of you squawk. Not pretty. I just want you to know I do not care about the scars. I don't mind those scars. I don't mind that you can't speak, either. When you come right down to it I like it. A lot. Kind of gets me going. I bet I can make you squawk a little.

...

Hoffstetler: I don't want an intricate, beautiful thing destroyed. Strickland: This thing dies. You learn. I leave. Out of here. Settle down. My family settles down. Somewhere. Nice. A real city. Hoffstetler: This creature is intelligent. Capable of language, of understanding emotions. Strickland: So are the Soviets, the Gooks. And we still kill them, don't we? The bottom line is, this is not a petting zoo. And I don't want to be in this shithole any longer than I need be.

...

Strickland: Israeli Popper. Do you smell the magnesium? The Russians hate the Jews, but they can't get enough of their gadgets.

...

Strickland [more to himself]: What am I doing? Interviewing the fucking help. The shit cleaners. The piss wipers. You two, go ahead. Leave.[Elisa signs "fuck you"]Strickland: What did you say to me? What did she say? What is she saying?! Zelda: She is saying "Thank you".

...

Hoffstetler: When will you release him? Zelda: Soon. When the rain fills the canal that flows to the sea. Hoffstetler [handing her his card]: If you need anything. Release him. Soon. [Elisa signs]Hoffstetler: What did she say? Zelda: She said, you're a good man, Doctor Hoffstetler. Hoffstetler: My name is Dimitri. Honored to meet you.

...

Giles [to Elisa]: He ate the cat. It wasn't his fault. He's a wild creature. We can't ask him to be anything else.

...

Zelda: Why you smiling, hon? Stop looking like that. What happened? Why? How? How? Does he...? Does he have a..."[Elisa nods]

Beastiality? You tell me.

Zelda [to Elisa]: Never trust a man. Even when he looks flat down there.

...

Giles [to Elisa]: I'm toweling my hair. It's my hair! And...and...look at the arm. The wound. As if it was never there. You said He was worshipped like a god. Is he a God? I don't look to him as a God. He ate a cat. So I-I don't know! I don't know!

...

Strickland: A man fails. Once. Only once. What does that make? Does that make him a failure? When is a man done, Sir? Proving himself? A good man. A decent man. Hoyt: Decent? A man must have the decency not to fuck up. That's one thing. That is real decent of him. The other kind of decency. It doesn't really matter. We sell it. But it's an export. We sell it 'cause we don't use it. 36 hours from now, this entire episode will be over. And so will you. Our universe will have a hole in it with your outline. And you will have moved on to an alternate universe. A universe of shit. You will be lost to civilization. And you will be unborn. Unmade. Undone. So, go get some real decency, Son. And unfuck this mess.

Strickland: Names, ranks and location of the strike team. Names! Ranks! Now! Hoffstetler: No names No ranks. They...They just clean.

...

Strickland: Zelda. The thing in the lab. Where is it? Zelda: Where is what? I'm sorry, Sir. If I knew anything I would surely tell you. Strickland: That story about Samson. I never told you how it ended. After the Philistines torture him and blind him. Samson asks God for the strength he needs And at the last minute, he is spared. And the Lord gives him his strength back. One last time. And he holds the columns of the temple with his powerful arms and crushes them. And he brings the whole building down on the Philistines. He dies. But he gets every single one of those motherfuckers. That is his will. Now, do you know what that particular story means? For us, Delilah?[Zelda shakes her head]Strickland: It means that if you know something you're not telling me, you're gonna tell me. Either. Either before or after... I bring this particular temple... down upon our heads.

Cue the Hollywood ending on steroids.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

There's no place like home. Really, given an avalanche of vicissitudes awaiting most in the course of living their lives from day to day, who wouldn't want something to fall back on when the shit starts in on tumbling down on them.

Of course there are homes and there are homes. Some homes may actually be causing the avalanche. Or constitute significant chunks of the debris. So it always comes down to your own particular narrative emerging from your own particular experiences precipitating your own particular vicissitudes.

Some get lucky though. In the end, there really is no place like home for them. It just takes time for them to find that out.

Things just get all that more complicated when you are "artistically inclined". And from the "wrong side of the tracks". And attending a Catholic High School. In Sacramento.

In other words, she's "rebellious" And a narcissist. Another rendition of "me against the world". One, however, in which no one really takes the time to seriously explore this relationship from the perspective of, say, someone like me?

Anyway, home for her may not necessarily be what home is for you. And that's well before we get to the part about deciding what a home ought to be.

As for Greta Gerwig...wasn't she once the "it" girl at Sundance? The next Chloe Sevigny? I first saw her in Baghead above. And look at her now!

See if you can spot what's left of the class struggle.

IMDb

Greta Gerwig encouraged the actors to keep secrets about their characters from her.

Director Greta Gerwig said in an interview that she would have preferred the film to be "just close-ups of Saoirse Ronan's face" because of her immense beauty.

Lady Bird temporarily broke the record held by Toy Story 2 (163 reviews, all "fresh") of the best-reviewed movie of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, with 196 "fresh" reviews in a row. However, it ended up getting its first "rotten" review after counting 197, therefore no longer holding a perfect score. It maintains a 100% rating for Top Critics.

Title card: Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent a Christmas in Sacramento. Joan Didion

...

Lady Bird: I wish I could live through something. Marion [mother]: Aren't you? Lady Bird: The only exciting thing about 2002 is that it's a palindrome.

...

Lady Bird: I don't even want to go to school on this state anyway. I hate California. I want to go to the East Coast. Marion: Your Dad and I will barely be able to afford in-state tuition. Lady Bird: There are loans, scholarships! Marion: Your brother, your very smart brother...he can't even find a job. Lady Bird: He and Shelley work. They have jobs. Marion: They bag at the grocery store. That is not a career and they went to Berkley. Your father's company is laying people off right and left. Did you even know that? No of course you don't because you don't think about anybody but yourself.

...

Lady Bird: I want to go where the culture is, like New York. Marion: How in the world did I raise such a snob?Lady Bird: Or at least Connecticut or New Hampshire. Where writers live in the woods.

...

Sister [to the class]: There are the classics: Saint Augustine, of course. Aquinas. My favorite, Kierkegaard. Wait until you hear his love story. It will make you swoon.

...

Lady Bird: Have a good day at work. Larry [father]: Hey, I'm like Keith Richards: "I'm just happy to be anywhere."

...

Danny: You live in the neighborhood? Lady Bird: No, I'm from the wrong side of the tracks. Danny: What?

...

Sister [to the kids dancing]: Six inches for the Holy Spirit!

...

Marion: This uniform is gonna look like trash on Monday! This isn't right. We can't treat our clothes like this. I don't know what your wealthy friends do...Lady Bird: Why do you care what I do to my clothes? Marion: Our father does not have a job. He lost his job. Do you need him to come in here and explain that to you? Of course he probably wouldn't anyway, he's Mr. Nice Guy. And I always have to be the Bad Guy. Lady Bird: Can we please talk about this tomorrow? Marion: You can't look like a rag because that makes us look like rags. And you want to know the truth? Here is the truth: some of your friends' fathers could employ your father and they are not gonna do it if it looks like his family is trash.

...

Lady Bird: Hey, I think B. Math teacher: I thought it was more like B- maybe even C+ territory. Lady Bird: No, because I did really well on the last quiz...Teacher: I seem to remember you doing only slightly better. Lady Bird: It brought my average up to a B. Teacher: Okay, B it is. It's your honor.

Kyle: You don't have a cell phone? Lady Bird: Nah. Kyle: Good girl. The government didn't have to put tracking devices on us, we bought them and put them on ourselves. Lady Bird: I don't own a tracking device. Kyle: No, the cell phones. See? Yeah. I mean you'll have one eventually. Everyone's gonna have one. And then it'll be a matter of time before. Lady Bird: Before what? Kyle: Before they put them in our brains.

...

Lady Bird: I'm not going to a fucking university that's famous for it's fucking agricultural school!!

...

Lady Bird: Is Dad depressed? Marion: Why do you ask that? Lady Bird: The pills...they have Dad's name on them. Marion: Dad's been struggling with depression for years. Lady Bird: I didn't know that. Marion: Money is not life's report card. Lady Bird: He's depressed about money? Martion: Being successful doesn't mean anything in and of itself. It just means that you're successful. Lady Bird: Yeah, but then you're successful. Marion: But that doesn't mean that you're happy. Lady Bird: But he is not happy.

...

Lady Bird: I have to get out of Sacramento. Jenna: Why? Lady Bird: Because it's soul-killing. It's the mid-west of California. Jenna: Isn't there a thing, like think globally, act locally. Lady Bird: I feel that the person who said that didn't live in Sacramento.

...

Casey: What did you say, ma'am? Lady Bird: Nothing. Casey: Please, share. Lady Bird: I said just because something looks ugly doesn't mean that it is morally wrong. Casey: You think dead children aren't morally wrong? Lady Bird: No...I'm just saying that if you took close up pictures of my vagina while I was on my period it would be disturbing but it doesn't make it wrong. Casey: Excuse me? Lady Bird: Listen, if your mother had had the abortion, we wouldn't have to sit through this stupid assembly.

...

Marion: Do you have any idea what it cost to raise you? How much you're just throwing away every day? Lady Bird [with a pencil and pad]: Give me a number. Marion: What?Lady Bird: Give me a number. Marion: I don't understand. Lady Bird: You give me a number for how much it cost to raise me, and I'm going to get older and make a lot of money and write you a check for what I owe you so that I never have to speak to you again.

...

Kyle: Yeah, I've probably slept with, like, six people? Lady Bird: You don't even know if it's six people? Kyle: I don't keep a list. Lady Bird: Why wouldn't you keep a list? We're in high school! Kyke: Why are you getting so moody? Lady Bird: You did say you were a virgin...I just had a whole experience that was wrong. Kyke: Look, you're deciding to be upset. Lady Bird: No, I am upset. Kyle: Because you're deciding to be. Don't be mad at me for this. That's stupid. You can't be mad at me for something I have no control over now. Lady Bird: I just wanted it to be special. Kyle: Why? You're going to have so much un-special sex in your life. Lady Bird: I was on top! Who the fuck is on top their first time?

...

Sister Sarah: I know it was you who did the Just Married thing. I'm not going to punish you. Lady Bird: Oh...why not? Sister Sarah: It was funny. Sister Gina and I drove all the way home before we noticed people were honking. Lady Bird: Really? Sister Sarah: To be fair, I wasn't just married to Jesus. It's been forty years... Lady Bird: Well, he's a lucky guy.

...

Marion: I just want you to be the very best version of yourself you can be. Lady Bird: What if this is the best version?

...

Larry [to Marion]: It's okay. She'll be back. She'll come back.

...

Larry [on the phone]: She was worried that there would be errors, or mistakes or something...that you'd judge her writing abilities. Lady Bird: I wouldn't do that. Larry: I thought you should have them. I want you to know how much she loves you, but also don't tell her I salvaged them, okay? Lady Bird: Okay.

...

Lady Bird: Do you believe in God? David: No. Lady Bird: Why not? David: It's ridiculous. Lady Bird: People call each other by names their parents made up for them but they won't believe in God.

...

Lady Bird [leaving a message on the phone]: Hi Mom and Dad, it's me. Christine. It's the name you gave me. It's a good one. Dad, this is more for mom. Hey Mom, did you feel emotional, the first time that you drove in Sacramento? I did and I wanted to tell you, but we weren't really talking when it happened. All those bends I've known my whole life, and stores, and the whole thing. But I wanted to tell you. I love you. Thank you. I'm...Thank you.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

And what might that be? Well, I think we can all agree this depends on who you ask. For example, what might the folks in God's own country be thinking about with respect to homosexuality? Is that in or out of it?

Lots and lots of different Gods to ask though, right? If only by way of those who worship and adore them.

Indeed, imagine some of the answers we might get from folks right here.

And then there's the part about the "modern world". Or, perhaps, a postmodern world. One in which any number of men like Johnny go about the business of living from day to day with little or nothing that is really meaningful in their lives. There is no center of gravity they feel anchored to. Nothing that makes their lives seem important and necessary and grounded in one or another overarching sense of reality.

Instead, they fill the days with one or another distraction -- booze, drugs, casual sex. Doing the time in whatever way they manage to think up. And, thus, far, far, far removed from...tenderness? intimacy?

Then cue a meme that goes way back. The one that revolves around a deep and binding love in a deep and binding relationship. For some that can literally change everything. And this is basically the same for those of any particular sexual persuasion.

And here it all unfolds in a "rural setting" -- a farm -- where some things just get magnified all that much more.

Note: The characters in this film speak English. English however with a very thick accent. And there were no subtitles. I could barely follow them at times. In order to provide the dialogue below, I had to refer back time and again to the script at Springfield! Springfield!

All scenes containing graphic images of animals are real and were shot on location at a real farm nearby the director's childhood home, without using body doubles for the actors.

To prepare for their roles as farmers, the director made the two actors live and work in a farm for several weeks prior shooting the movie.

The Romanian character in the film is inspired by an actual romanian worker the director had met in the past and his experiences in dealing with racism while staying in the UK as an immigrant. The film is partly based on writer and director Francis Lee's own life, where he also had to make a decision to either stay and work on his family's farm or go off to drama school.

Father [after blaming Johnny for the dead bull calf]: Thank God that lad's on his way. Johnny: Yeah, I could've managed. I have done so far.Father: Yeah, course you have. Let's all give you a round of applause, shall we?

...

Johnny: You half-Paki or summat? Gheorghe: Pardon? Er, no, I am from Romania. Johnny: Gypsy. Gheorghe: Please don't call me that. Johnny: That door needs a shove. Don't always close proper. Me Nan said to say come over and she'll make you a bap and a brew when you're set. I told you, didn't I? Shitehole. Bet you wish you'd stayed in Romania.

...

Johnny: That's what I love about folk like you. You fuck off to your posh colleges an' that and swan back here on your holidays, thinking you know it all. Some of us just have to get on wi' it, like.Gloria: Alright. It's just a night out. Johnny: Aye, to you. I'll tell me cows they can go without their teas shall I cos I'm off gallivanting around Bradford? Gloria: You'd like my uni mates. They're a laugh. One of them's a real laugh. Johnny: What do you mean by that? Gloria: He's nice. You'd like him. He's funny. Remember? Like you used to be. Johnny: Before I had to join the real world. Gloria: You know what? Forget it. You can be a right pain in the arse, John Saxby. And not in a good way.

...

Johnny: I have a few pints on a night-time. So what? What else am I meant to do apart from work, like? There's fuck all else going on round here, is there? Father: I'd keep a lid on it if I were you. Johnny: What's wrong with just wanting a night out somewhere? Bradford or somewhere, I don't know. Father: Don't talk daft. Johnny: I'm not you, you know. Father [angrily]: Who the hell do you think you're talking to?! Johnny: No one gives a flying fuck what I think. I'm just here to slog me guts out cos you're fucking fucked.

...

Johnny: Get your arse into gear, gypo. Gheorghe [pushing him to the ground, lying on top of him]: Do not call me that. I know what you're doing. I will fuck with you. Do we understand each other? [Johnny nods]Gheorghe: Good. Now we can get on with the work. Yes? Johnny: Yeah.

Shades of Brokeback Mountain

Gheorghe [to Johnny]: It's beautiful here. When I was a kid, I thought I would never leave my farm. It's beautiful here, but lonely, no?

Johnny: I can do that for you, Nan. Deirdre: Are you sickening for summat?

...

Gheorghe [to Johnny]: I was thinking, I could stay a little longer. Until Martin is better. Just to help out.

...

Johnny: How do you say 'farm'? Gheorghe: Ferma. Johnny: How do you say 'sheep'? Gheorghe: Oaie. Johnny: How do you say...'cock'? Gheorghe: Cock.

...

Johnny: Gheorghe did eggs and that. Deirdre: Did he? Johnny: He's a good lad. He's gonna stay on for a bit. Deirdre: Just so as you're clear, he's here to work. Johnny: Yeah, I know. Deirdre: Right. Just so you're clear. Johnny: I am.

...

Johnny: Will you go back? Gheorghe: My country is dead. You can't throw a rock in most towns without hitting an old lady crying for her children who have gone. Johnny: I was thinking...I'm not sure what's gonna happen now with our dad the way he is, but how would it be if you stayed on, like? Gheorghe: I've told you, I can stay. Johnny: Yeah. I guess I just mean for longer.

...

Deirdre [to Johnny]: He left. I'm guessing you had summat to do with it. So what are we gonna do now, clever clogs? Johnny: We'll manage.

...

Deirdre: You should get some rest, lad. Johnny: I'm fine. I can cope. Deirdre: You mean, like your dad did?

...

Johnny [to his father]: I'm sorry. I can't do what you want me to. I can make this work but... the way that I want to do it, not you. I've got to go get him. I want to go and get him.

...

Deirdre [to Johnny]: You forgetting summat?

...

Johnny: I must've fallen asleep. I tried to stay awake, but I was dead tired, like. Gheorghe: What are you doing here? Johnnny: I wanted to see you. Gheorghe: What is it? Johnny: I got that antiseptic for the sheep. She's doing a lot better. Gheorghe: Good.Johnny: I thought you'd be pleased. Gheorghe: I'm pleased you're helping the sheep.

...

Johnny: Why did you just leave? [the look on Gheorghe's face tells him why]Gheorghe: You shouldn't have come. I'm not the answer. Johnny: Yeah. I know. But I needed to see you. Gheorghe: And now you do. Johnny: I thought if I could see you talk to you I could make things better. You know? Try at least.Gheorghe: Is that it? Nothing else? Johnny: I should...Yeah. OK. I'm trying to do this. Don't you see? I'm...I'm trying to sort it out. And I've come all this way up here, on a coach and everything. And I want you to come back. With me. And I want us to be together. I don't want to be a fuck-up anymore. I want to be with you. And that's what I needed to say. Gheorghe: You're a freak. Johnny: So are you. Gheorghe: Faggot. Johnny: Fuck off...faggot.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Talk about conflicting goods. Few things are either embraced or loathed more than this particular political contraption. And how can everything not revolve here around your own particular experiences with it out in any one particular world?

This tale unfolds in modern day Britain. And we all know that a welfare state exists there. But what few of us will know is the extent to which there is a gap between what is portrayed in this film and what is likely to unfold "in reality" for the majority of those who do employ the welfare state there in the course of sustaining their lives from day to day.

Is it or is it not actually this "Kafkaesque"? Is this or is this not likely to happen?

After all, there is a liberal rendition of "the welfare state" and a conservative rendition. And, for the conservatives, the narrative generally falls along the lines of the individual being responsible for his or her own welfare. You are either able to manage on your own or you are not. And, if you can't, it's basically all your own damn fault. And, for some, it then becomes perfectly reasonable to hold those "on welfare" in contempt.

It all becomes entangled in one or another depiction of the "class struggle". And, let's face it, the global economy being what it is, the "welfare state" is [increasingly] being chipped away at year in and year out. Across the globe as it were.

At the heart of the matter is the realization that a bureaucracy revolves around a one-size-fits-all set of rules while each of us as individuals is embedded in our own very much unique set of circumstances. And here we have the bureaucrats from hell. That and the fact the state often does make qualifying for welfare a fucking nightmare for many.

As The Clash once put it of the British system:

"And number twoYou have the right to food moneyProviding of courseYou don't mind a littleInvestigation, humiliationAnd if you cross your fingersRehabilitation"

Another film in which the characters speak English and yet following their conversations can often be an ordeal. Thank god for subtitles on this one.

IMDb

The film was shot in chronological order. Lead actress Hayley Squires was not given the entire script to read before filming. She only was given fragments as accompanying scenes were shot.

At the Cannes premiere, Ken Loach and his team were greeted with a rapturous 15-minute standing ovation after the official screening of I, Daniel Blake (2016).

In the film Daniel is offered a drink from the water cooler in the Jobcentre. Water coolers were removed from jobcentres in 2010 as part of the Tory cuts.

Director Ken Loach is the oldest Palme d'Or winner ever. When he won on 22nd May 2016 for I, Daniel Blake (2016), he was 79 years old.

From the end credits: A very special thanks to workers within the DWP [Department for Work and Pensions] and PCS [Public and Commercial Services] Union who provided us with invaluable information but who must remain anonymous.

All the women who work for the public agencies have the same haircut: bangs with a mid length straight bob.

The woman helping Hayley Squires' character, Katie, in the much-discussed food bank scene was not an actor - she worked in the food bank, and was not told what was going to happen in the scene.

The incident involving Katie at the foodbank really happened to a woman in Glasgow who Paul Laverty met while researching his script.

Amanda: Good morning, Mr Blake. My name's Amanda. I've got a couple of questions here for you today to establish your eligibility for Employment Support Allowance. It won't take up much of your time. Could I just ask firstly, can you walk more than 50 metres unassisted by any other person? Daniel: Yes. Amanda: Okay. Can you raise either arm as if to put something in your top pocket? Daniel: I've filled this in already on your 52-page form. Amanda: Yeah, I can see that you have but, unfortunately, I couldn't make out what you had said there. Daniel: Yes. Amanda: Can you raise either arm to the top of your head as if you are putting on a hat? Daniel: I've telt you, there's nowt wrong with me arms and legs. Amanda: Could you just answer the question, please.

And on and on and on.

Daniel [to Amanda]: Listen, I've had a major heart attack. I nearly fell off the scaffolding. I wanna get back to work, too. Now, please, can we talk about me heart? Forget about me arse, that works a dream.

...

Daniel: When can I go back to work? Doctor: Ah, not yet, that's for certain.

...

Daniel [on the phone]: D'you know how long I've been on this phone? One hour, forty-eight minutes. Jesus Christ, that's longer than a football match. It'll cost a fortune. Bureaucrat: I'm sorry, sir, but it's been very busy. Daniel: There must be some mistake. I've got a serious heart condition. I'm in rehab and the doctor's told us I cannae go back to work. Now, I was getting the benefits fine until that bloody assessment. Bureaucrat: I see you've only scored twelve points, er, and you need 15 to obtain benefits. Daniel: Oh, points, that's your game? Bureaucrat: I'm sorry, sir, but according to our health, er, health care professional, you've been deemed fit for work. Daniel: So she knows better than my doctor, a consultant surgeon and a physio team? Well, I wanna appeal. Bureaucrat: Well, that's fine, but you'll have to first request a mandatory reconsideration. Daniel: What the bloody hell does that mean? Bureaucrat: It means the decision maker will reconsider it and if he comes to the same decision, you can then appeal. Daniel: Right, well put us down for that, then. Bureaucrat: Okay, sir, but you must wait to get a call from the decision maker. Daniel: Why? Bureaucrat: To tell you what the decision is. Daniel: But that's already been decided. Bureaucrat: It is, but you're supposed to get the call, before the letter. Daniel: Well, is he gonna change his mind? Bureaucrat: No, the call's just to discuss the decision. Daniel: Well, I know what the decision is, I've got the letter here in front of us.

And on and on and on.

Bureaucrat [at the government office]: If you're ill, you have to apply for Employment and Support, get an assessment carried out. Daniel: Well, I've done that but they've knocked us back. Bureaucrat: Right, well if you've been deemed fit for work, your only option is Jobseeker's Allowance. Or proceed with the appeal on Employment and Support. Daniel: Well, can you give me a form for...You know, erm, Jobseeker's Allowance and then an appeal form Employment and Support? Bureaucrat: You have to apply online, sir. Danieal: I cannot do that. Bureaucrat: Well that's how it is, sir. Or you can phone the helpline. Daniel: Listen, you know, you give me a plot of land, I can build you a house. But I've never been anywhere near a computer. Bureaucrat: D'you know what, we're digital by default. Daniel: Oh, here we gan. I hear this all the time on the phone, "I'm digital by default." Well I'm pencil by default.

And on and on and on.

Government worker [teaching Daniel to use the computer]: And, here we are. "Claim Jobseeker's". Okay? So double-click on that one. All right. And then we need to scroll right the way down here to continue. And that's your, that's your form there for you. So you need to run the mouse up the screen, click into there and pop your postcode in. Daniel [takes the mouse and physically runs it up the screen]: Run the mouse up the screen, yeah? Okay. Yeah. Woman: No. No, not quite like that.

...

Woman: What you need to do is get your cursor...Daniel: "Your cursor"? It's a fucking apt name for it.

...

Daniel [aloud to himself]: Oh, bloody hell. What's this now? "Error"?

...

Daniel: This is driving me mental, this. I mean, what have I done now? Man [trying to help him]: It's frozen. Yeah. Daniel: It's frozen? Well...Well, can you defrost it? Man: No, mate, I can't.

...

China: Dan, don't know why you're applying for that after your heart attack. Right, now I'm printing your appeal form for Employment and Support Allowance. But you can't appeal till they carry out a mandatory reconsideration. Daniel: You mean, they could have given it to me just like that? China: Dan, they'll fuck you around, I'm warning you. Make it as miserable as possible. No accident. That's the plan. I know dozens who have just given up.

...

Woman [on phone]: I have a note on the screen, sir, that you're awaiting a call from the decision maker. Daniel: Jesus, 55 minutes to hear all this again. Am I in a time warp? Woman: You can't proceed to the appeal or the mandatory reconsideration till you have the call from the decision maker. Daniel: Well, can you ask him to phone us now, because I've got no income. I've got no pension and I've still got the bedroom tax. Woman: I'll make a note on my screen, sir. Daniel: Well can you not give him the note now? You know, put it in his hand? Woman: This is a call centre, sir.

...

Government employee: This is the Claimant Commitment form. You must commit yourself to spending 35 hours a week looking for work. Now that can be newspapers, agencies, and online via the Universal Job Match. You just fill in the details. But you must prove that you've done this as well, mind. Daniel: Well I've been told by my doctor that I'm not supposed to go back to work yet. Woman: Then you should apply for Employment and Support Allowance. Daniel: I have, but I've been knocked back by some quack and now I'm trying to appeal. Woman: Okay. Well that's your choice, Mr Blake. Daniel: No, it's not my choice. I've got no other form of income. Woman: Do you want to sign this or not?

And on and on and on.

Woman: Now can I have a look at your CV? Daniel: "CV"? Woman [holding up a phamphlet]: You still don't get this, do you, Mr Blake? This is an agreement between you and the State.Daniel: I'm desperate to go back to work. Woman: If you're desperate to get back to work...

And on and on and on.

Man [running the CV workshop]: Ten seconds. Ten short seconds. That's how much a typical employer spends flipping through a CV. Fact. Sixty applications for every low-skilled job. Fact. For a skilled job, it's twenty to one. Fact. Costa Coffee advertised eight jobs. D'you know how many applications they got from that? Over 1,300. Fact. So, what does that mean? Daniel [to the man next to him]: We should all be drinking a lot more bloody coffee. Speaker: Yeah, d'you wanna share that with us? Daniel: I said, we should all be drinking a lot more bloody coffee then. Speaker: This is serious business and people have only got one shot at this, all right? Daniel: Well if you can count, it's obvious. There's not enough jobs. Fact.

CVs? Note: "In Britain the document that you use to apply for a job is called a CV. That stands for 'curriculum vitae', which in Latin means '(the) course of (my) life'. In America, this document is called a resumé, which is basically French for 'a summary'."

Harry [on the phone]: Hi, Daniel, it's Harry Edwards here. We spoke the other day at the garden centre when you came down and handed your CV. I tell you what, mate, I've been going through all the CVs I've had handed over the last couple of weeks. And I really like the look of yours. Erm, you've got the experience I'm looking for. I was wondering if you could possibly, er, pop by tomorrow and that for an interview? Daniel: Oh... I'm really sorry, er, Mr Edwards, but, you know, er, my doctor's told us I cannae come back to work yet. Harry: So you're not actually looking for work, then? Daniel: Well, it's hard to explain, you know. Harry: So, well, what's the point of handing in your CV if you're not looking for work? Daniel: Well it's the only way I can get me benefits, you know? Harry: "Benefits"? So you prefer to be on benefits than do a day's graft? You know, I thought you were a genuine bloke. You know, I've spent a lot of time going through them all. I've... I was gonna put some graft your way. You've just wasted my time completely. Why don't you just sod right off! Daniel: Listen, that's not...[Harry hangs up]

...

Sheila [Government worker]: Well that's not good enough, Mr Blake. And how do I know you've actually been in contact with all these employers? Daniel: Well, I walked round the town. I gave out me CV by hand. Sheila: Well, prove it. Daniel: How? Sheila: Well, did you get a receipt? Take a picture with your mobile?Daniel: I give you my word that's what I did. Sheila: That's not good enough, Mr Blake....I'm afraid I'm gonna have to refer you to a decision maker for a possible sanction for four weeks. Your payment will be frozen. You may be entitled to Hardship Allowance if you apply. Do you understand? And if you are sanctioned, you must continue to look for work and sign on. If you don't, you may be sanctioned again. And it's likely to be for thirteen weeks on the second occasion, and thereafter. And likely to be the maximum of up to three years.

Meanwhile, all the time he has been forbidden to return to work by his doctor!

Daisy: The girls at school are making fun of me. Katie: Why are they making fun of you? Daisy: My shoes fell apart. Katie: Oh, did they? But we glued them back together. Mmm. They fell apart again? All right, we can get you a new pair of shoes. Daisy: We don't have the money. Katie: Don't you worry about that, we can get you a new pair of shoes.

How you might ask.

Ivan [on the phone]: Hello? Katie: Hello, is that Ivan? Ivan: It is, yeah. Who's that? Katie: It's, it's Katie, the girl at the supermarket. You gave me...You gave me your phone number. Ivan: Okay, I remember you. Katie: Yeah, I was, erm...I was ringing about the work that you were talking about.

...

Katie [who in desparation has turned to prostitution]: Oh, no, Dan. Daniel: Katie, you don't need to do this. Katie: You shouldn't see me like this. I'm sorry...This is separate. Can you...You need to get out. Daniel: Listen, I couldn't speak to you in the flat, I need to speak to you now. Katie: Dan, please, get out. Daniel: Oh, Katie, please, I need to speak to you. I just wanna speak to you. Katie! Katie: Dan, please, just go. Dan, please, I don't want you here! Will you just go, please! DanieL This is breaking my heart. Katie: Dan, please, just leave me alone. I've got 300 quid in my pocket. I can buy the kids fresh fruit. If you can't deal with it, I can't see you any more. Listen, I've gotta go back inside. D'you understand? I don't wanna speak to you any more. And don't show me any more love. Cos you're gonna break me, Dan.

...

Ann: I don't understand. So what jobs have you actually applied for? Daniel: It's a monumental farce, isn't it? You sitting there with your friendly name tag on your chest, Ann, opposite a sick man looking for nonexistent jobs, that I can't take anyway. Wasting my time, employers' time, your time. And all it does is humiliate me, grind me down. Or is that the point, to get my name off those computers?

...

Ann: Please listen to me, Dan. It's a huge decision to come off JSA without any other income coming in. Look, it... It could be weeks before your appeal comes through. You see, there's no time limit for a mandatory reconsideration. I've got a time limit. And you might not win. Please, just keep signing on. Get somebody to help you with the online job searches. Otherwise, you could lose everything. Please don't do this. I've seen it before. Good people, honest people, on the street. Daniel: Thank you, Ann. But when you lose your self-respect, you're done for.

...

Daniel [with a can of black spray paint to the government buidling walls]: I DANIEL BLAKE DEMAND MY APPEAL DATE BEFORE I STARVE...AND THE SHITE MUSIC ON THE PHONES

...

Daisy [through the mail slot]: Dan. Dan! Come, I need to talk to you. We called you loads of times. Dan! Mum's been so sad lately. Why don't you speak to her? Don't you have credit on the phone? I see you. We understand what happened to your heart. Mum spoke to one of your neighbours. We didn't know about it. It's cold out here. I'm freezing. Daniel [from inside]: Please, Daisy, I'm not feeling very well. Dasiy: I made you some couscous. And Dylan sent you his lollipop. He's really missing you, too. Daniel: Just go, Daisy, please. Daisy: Can I ask you one question, Dan? Did you help us? Daniel: I suppose so. Daisy: So why can't I help you?

...

Lawyer: Daniel, your appeal will be heard by a legally qualified chairperson and a doctor. Daniel: Aye, fingers crossed. If I lose this appeal, I'm out on the streets. Lawyer: Well, we've got some updated reports here from your GP, your own consultant and your physiotherapist. And they're all furious. You're gonna win this, Dan. I do this every week. Just be yourself, answer the questions and relax. I'm really confident.

...

Katie [in church after Daniel dies of a heart attack]: They call this a "pauper's funeral" because it's the cheapest slot, at 9:00. But Dan wasn't a pauper to us. He gave us things that money can't buy. When he died, I found this on him. He always used to write in pencil. Erm... And he wanted to read it at his appeal but he never got the chance to. And I swear that this lovely man, had so much more to give, and that the State drove him to an early grave. And this is what he wrote. "I am not a client, a customer, nor a service user. I am not a shirker, a scrounger, a beggar, nor a thief. I'm not a National Insurance Number or blip on a screen. I paid my dues, never a penny short, and proud to do so. I don't tug the forelock, but look my neighbor in the eye and help him if I can. I don't accept or seek charity. My name is Daniel Blake. I am a man, not a dog. As such, I demand my rights. I demand you treat me with respect. I, Daniel Blake, am a citizen, nothing more and nothing less." Thank you.

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles